Filed under: Adult Enrichment and Group Meetings, Comparative Religion, Comparative Religion, Graduate Theological school/PSR, International | Tags: animism, GTU, Maori, New Zealand history, religion
for HR4175, Cultural and Faith Traditions of Asia and Oceania
Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary
March 28, 2012
Introduction
Key aspects of Maori cosmology are the mythic origins of the universe, the relationship between human beings and supernatural powers, the cyclical nature of human life, and the importance of ancestral connections. Rapid Christianization altered the indigenous cosmology, and colonial exploitation led to Biblically-inspired prophets and resistance movements.
Background of Aotearoa New Zealand
New Zealand has nearly four million inhabitants on its North and South Islands, and several smaller ones. Since 1907 it has been a dominion of the United Kingdom, like Australia and Canada.
It was one of the last areas of the globe to be inhabited by human beings. The indigenous Maori arrived by canoe from other parts of Polynesia in the fourteenth century. Maori culture is based on land and kinship links, as is shown below.
Explorer Abel Tasman sighted it in 1642 and James Cook circumnavigated it 1769. English Christian missionary activity began early in the 1800. Now, 80 percent of Maori are Christian (but with Maori cultural influences) and the remainder hold to the traditional religion or other western sects. In 1840 England presented the Treaty of Waitangi to 35 Maori chiefs, making them British subjects and ostensibly granting them land rights. However, by deceitful translation of key words in the Maori version of the treaty, the English cheated the Maori out of their land rights. This led to expropriation, displacement, and alienation for the Maori. By 1850, the violence and imported diseases reduced the Maori population to equal that of the settler.
When the English arrived, the Maori population was 100,000. Now the Maori make up 10 percent of the population (approximately 400,000), mainly around Auckland and other North Island urban areas.[1] Land wars with colonial militias lasted from 1843 to 1872. Largely urban-based Maori protests took place in the 1970s and 80s for land and other tribal rights, resulting in a standing tribunal to investigate present violations of the treaty if not original ones. Four Parliament seats are reserved for Maori. The country’s official name is now Aotearoa New Zealand; the Maori word [pronounced Ao-te-a-roa ]means “land of the long white cloud.” Maps are at this link.
Cosmology
The German encyclopedia Religion Past and Present defines cosmology as “a specific culture’s orientation in space and time as conceived in words, images and rituals.” It continues: “Religious worldviews represent the complete order…. bringing the visible into agreement with the invisible.”[2] Myths and genealogies were handed down by oral tradition (but written down after colonization). The Maori worldview comprises myths, genealogies, and ritual practices and prohibitions.
Maori Cosmogony: Origins of the Universe
Moewa Callaghan, citing the authorities Marsden and Henare, explains the myth that the god Tane “ascended to the highest heaven … to obtain the three ‘baskets of knowledge.’ These baskets contained the knowledge of the creation of the cosmos, of the gods and of humanity.”[3] What Tane revealed was this: Te Po is the great void, a realm of darkness, and a source or process of growth and causation.
Callaghan summarizes origins this way: “Te Hau ora (the essence of life) begat shape, shape begat form, form begat space, space begat time, and time begat Rangi and Papa. Ranginui was the Great Sky, who impregnated Papatuanuki the Earth. These are the original parents of creation, including nature and the spiritual powers inherent in the world. Their son Tane pushed them apart to emerge from their mating embrace, and this opening led to the flourishing of creation. Humanity is the child of this god Tane and the “dawnmaid Hineahuone, who was formed … out of the red clay.”[4]
A mythic hero common to many Polynesian cultures is named Maui. New Zealand’s legendary origin is that Maui used a jawbone as a fishhook to draw the North Island out of the sea; its name, Te-Ika-a-Maui, means “fish-of-Maui.” The South Island is Maui’s ship.[5] He is too much of the earth to be worshipped as a god, but he is more than human, and is invoked in rituals for fishing and planting sweet potatoes.
Atuas, Mana and Tapu: The Supernatural Dwells in Nature
“Departmental gods” is the term scholars use to refer to divinities or powers whose influence is focused on particular aspects of nature or human life. For the Maori, atuas are the gods, spirit powers, and supernatural beings that imbue all of life and creation or, as Hanson says, are “frequent visitors to the physical world, where they [are] extremely active.” He notes the kinds of unexplained events that were attributed to atuas: weather, the growth of plants, physical or mental illnesses, menstruation, “the fear that gripped a normally brave warrior before battle, [and] the skill of an artist.”[6]
. “Maori do not acknowledge chance,” writes Callaghan.[7] Rather, they act in ways to manage, call upon, respond to, as well as avoid the atuas. James Irwin says: “[The] gods may be deceived but not overcome.”[8] The crucial factors for surviving and succeeding in such a spirit-filled world are mana and tapu. Mana is spiritual or supernatural power, available to chiefs, and invoked by or invested in the rituals of elders, often tribal chiefs or tohunga. For example, birth rituals known as tohi ora can confer mana on a person. On the other hand, Maori legend says that “an aborted fetus not given safe burial becomes a malicious spirit.”[9]
Mana is guarded (and ordinary people protected from it) by rituals and by sacred prohibitions and boundaries. Such restrictions are known as tapu. Hans Mol notes that tapu sets apart that which is sacred, powerful, significant, or dangerous, or forbidden. [10]
Tapu requirements pertain to food and limit contact with corpses, tribal chiefs, and warriors heading to battle. They guide the Maori away from offending the gods, lest “the demonic and chaotic would invade one’s world and disrupt personality or the group.”[11]
The concept and practice of tapu is widespread in Oceania, but it is from the Maori usage that scholars of religion coined the English word taboo.[12]
The blending of Christian theology and Maori cosmology began early. English missionaries translated God into Maori language as Atua, and heaven into the mythical sky-god’s name, Rangi. Irwin cites two Maori terms for sin: hara means harm brought by a “ritual failure” (the improper handling of mana), whereas he means an ethical failure, a wrong done to another person.[13]
Over generations, Maori poets and chiefs passed down various legends (not one version) of the origin of the universe and humanity, but after 1858 (when the Old Testament was published in Maori) they “redacted a more uniform version.” This version introduced a God similar to the Judeo-Christian Almighty, “a preexistent, supreme god, Io, whose essence fertilized the womb of potential being and set in motion the creation of the world.”[14]
Death and Eschatology
James Irwin writes that, absent Christianity, Maori religion has “no well defined eschatology. The dead either go to the ‘Above’ or the ‘Below’ and life in either place seems to be much as it is here….[with] no suggestion of reward or punishment.” [15]
Moeawa Callaghan explains: “Ancient Maori, who navigated such long distances did not believe in an end time. Life returns to Te Po [the realm of darkness] for re-creation and to Te Amo Amrama, the world of light and transformation.”[16] Hanson confirms that “death marked the return of the spirit to its point of origin.”[17]
More important for Christians to understand, Irwin says, is the Maori’s “solidarity with the ancestors… and the generations to come.” In the Maori Apostle’s Creed, he points out, the word for “communion of the saints” is Kotahitanga, meaning unity or oneness.[18]
Genealogies: Maori Ancestors in Canoes
The Maori do no think of themselves as part of the branches of a family tree, in the western sense, but “as descendants of the various crews of canoes which landed in New Zealand in the fourteenth century.”[19] This idea has mythic origins and a cosmic resonance: “[Where] Westerners see [the constellation] Pleiades in the sky, the Maoris saw the prow of a canoe…. The tail of the Scorpion is the canoe of Tama-rereti in which the star-children and their elders were placed in mythical times.”[20]
A canoe represents one’s family identity and tribal grouping; it symbolizes travel and recalls Maori origins, yet it also suggests instability and the possibility of relocation.[21] With such prominence in life and history, it is not surprising that the process of a woodworker fashioning a canoe (or builder making a house) is tapu. The atuas “animated [their] creative work.”[22]
Words of the ancestors provide guidance to the living as people recite proverbs and recount stories.[23] In particular, tribal recitations of a genealogy (whakapapa) connect people to their ancestors’ experiences and link them to cosmic origins. Given that identification with particular territory is key to ancestral connections and spiritual identity in general, the colonizers’ expropriation of Maori lands not only brought material hardships but provoked the spiritual disaster of alienation.
Colonialism: Theft of Land as Loss of Sacred Space
Missionary Samuel Marsden held the first Christian service in New Zealand on Christmas 1814. Mainly over the North Island, missions from the following traditions spread fast in the early nineteenth century: Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Wesleyan. (The largest denominations now are Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, and Latter Day Saints.[24]) The indigenous Ratana church and smaller Ringatu church are important sects.
When Samuel Marsden raised the English flag in 1814, he did not know that “Maori tribes claimed unoccupied land by setting up a pole and kindling fires.”[25] In resistance to accelerated missionary conversions in the 1830s, Maori leaders cut down British flagstaffs.
Mana o te whenua means “power over the land.” According to Jean Rosenfeld, to deceive the 35 chiefs who signed the Treaty of Waitangi, the British substituted another word for mana in order “to subvert the chiefs’ authority over their territories.” Her article is not clear if the substitution was in the English or Maori version of the treaty, but other sources confirm that the English misrepresented the agreement the Maori.[26]
The Maori waged war over the loss of their lands from 1843 to 1872. “In 1856, chiefs [of] tribes of the North Island and the South Island gathered around a flagstaff” to form common defense by granting “their mana over their combined territories to the first Maori king.”[27]
The Encyclopedia of Religion says: “Sacred space is a fundamental feature of Maori religion. A tribe’s land is marked by wahu tap, ‘sacred places’ named for what happened there and commemorated” in the telling of genealogies.
Land gave the Maori “a collective rather than individual knowledge of place, belonging. It was the place where the bones of one’s ancestors were buried.” Hence, the loss of land “meant the destruction of … hapu (subtribal cohesion)….[28]
A sacred space common to all tribes is the marae, an open place near the chief’s house on which the genealogy was recited, and where public gatherings still take place.[29] In the post-colonial context, the marae appears in tribal areas and urban gathering place. It has developed into an entire meeting and ritual complex, still under the charge of ritual leaders.
Prophetic Resistance, Maori Syncretism, and Accommodation
Much of the rapid conversion of the Maori took place before the majority of depredations and displacements brought by the colonizers. In reaction, some of the Maori rejected the missionaries.[30] Some Christian Maori left the faith for the Maori religion. Some chiefs and charismatic persons remade their new religion into a source of resistance.
For example, during the land wars against English militias, Maori fighters included “disciples of unconventional tohunga [chiefs] imbued with mana from the Holy Ghost, Gabriel and Michael, as well as the gods of their respective tribes.” Known as prophets (poropiti), many saw themselves in accounts of the Hebrews’ captivity, liberation and exodus toward the Promised Land.[31] Though they were Christian, they emphasized Old Testament stories and models for this reason; their leaders took on the role of Hebrew prophet.
In the 1860s, Maori warrior and preacher Te Kooti founded the Ringatu movement; the name means “upraised hand.” (During an exile he studied the Bible, especially Psalms, Judges and Joshua).[32] In the 1920s, the reformed alcoholic and visionary Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana founded his Ratana sect. (Smaller or less prominent groups arose also.) Among other leaders, the charismatic Ratana encouraged and practiced faith healing, recalling Biblical models but also responding to the real health crises of infection and mental anguish.
Conclusion
The striking natural places of New Zealand’s islands can make it understandable to even a casual tourist why the Maori saw the world imbued with powerful spirits of life and why the land and sea are the factors of humanity’s place in the cosmos. This makes the unjust colonial expropriations and dislocations even more tragic.
In contrast to the long colonization history of the Americas, New Zealand has become overwhelmingly western and Christian in a short time. Yet Maori culture and identity persist in–and shape–the dominant culture. This is the Maori religious heritage: honoring nature, human ancestry, a sense of place, and the sacredness of the ordinary. There is value for all of us in not only respecting this heritage but in heeding it.
Bibliography
Auffarth, Christolph. Cosmology. Vol. 3, in Religion Past and Present, 505-509. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
Callaghan, Moeawa. Theology in the Context of Aotearoa New Zealand. MA thesis. Berkeley, CA: Graduate Theological Union, 1999.
de Bres, Pieter H. “The Maori Contribution.” In Religion in New Zealand Society, by Brian and Peter Donovan, editors Colless. Edinburgh: T. &T. Clark, 1980.
Irwin, James. “The Maui Myth Cycle.” Colloquium: The Australian and New Zealand Theological Review 14, no. 1 (October 1981): 40-45.
Hanson, F. Allan. Maori Religion [First Edition]. Vol. 8, in Encyclopedia of Religion, 5697-5682. 2005.
Mol, Hans. The Fixed and the Fickle: Religion and Identity in New Zealand. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfid Laurier University Press, 1982.
Orbell, Margaret. “Maori.” In Religion Past and Present, 37. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
Rosenfeld, Jean E. Maori Religion [Further Considerations]. Vol. 8, in Encyclopedia of Religion, 5682-5685. 2005.
Notes
[1] (Rosenfeld), 5683.
[2] (Auffarth 2007).
[3] (Callaghan 1999), 81.
[4] (Callaghan 1999), 82.
[5] (Irwin 1981),41.
[6] (Hanson 2005), 5679.
[7] (Callaghan 1999),89.
[8] (Irwin 1981), 42.
[9] (Irwin 1981), 41.
[10] (Mol 1982), 8.
[11] (Mol 1982), 13.
[12] (Orbell 2007).
[13] (Irwin 1981), 43.
[14] (Rosenfeld 2005), 5683.
[15] (Irwin 1981), 45.
[16] (Callaghan 1999), 90.
[17] (Hanson 2005), 5679.
[18] (Irwin 1981), 45.
[19] (Mol 1982), 7.
[20] (Mol 1982), 7.
[21] (Mol 1982), 7.
[22] (Hanson 2005), 5682.
[23] (Callaghan 1999), 89.
[24] (Hanson 2005), 5682.
[25] (Rosenfeld 2005), 5682.
[26] Ibid.
[27] (Rosenfeld 2005), 5683.
[28] (Mol 1982), 8.
[29] (Rosenfeld 2005), 5682.
[30] (de Bres 1980), 32.
[31] (Rosenfeld 2005), 5683.
[32] (de Bres 1980), 35.
Filed under: Becoming and Being Part of a UU Congregation, Books (includes sermons based on books), Church Finances and Stewardship, Comparative Religion, Graduate Theological school/PSR, Inspiration, Reflections, Stewardship & Finances, Trends in Religion, UU Denomination and Pacific Central District News and Views | Tags: abundance, family feuds, family finances, family issues, generosity, inheritance, money and life, scarcity, stewardship
Hymns:
“Earth Was Given as a Garden,” “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah,” “For the Earth Forever Turning.”
Reading:
Today’s reading comes from an advice column in the newspaper: “Money Manners.” Written by Jeanne Fleming and Leonard Schwarz, it’s in our local paper, and at moneyville.ca. Today’s column (1/8/12) is: “What to do when exchanging gifts with a cheapskate.” This letter won’t rival the epistles of the Apostle Paul, but it is heartfelt. [i]
Dear Jeanne & Leonard:
It happened again this Christmas. Each year my husband and I ask his brother what he and his family of four would like for Christmas, and each year “William” reels off a list of pricey items that end up costing us a couple hundred dollars. In return, he sends us next to nothing — this year, a bargain-basket DVD and some drugstore bubble bath. I can’t stand another year of opening William’s cheap gifts and then getting the credit card bill for the nice things we sent his family. What should we do? By the way, the guy’s not hurting for money. –Nora
Dear Nora:
If you can’t stand playing Santa to William’s Scrooge, stop asking William what’s on his wish list. As it is, you and your husband are putting yourselves in the position of either having to buy the expensive gifts William wants or ignoring his requests. Next year, instead of asking, buy your brother-in-law and his family presents of your choosing, presents you won’t resent having bought when William’s gifts arrive.
Here ends the reading.
Sermon
“Get your finances in order!” says the New Year’s Day headline in the newspaper’s business and money section. The article gives a checklist: reduce debt, watch your spending habits, and get a discipline of saving money. Practical, important help. Yet beneath “getting our finances in order” is everyone’s complicated relationship with money. This is a spiritual issue, and like other spiritual issues it can’t be taken care of by resolutions and checklists alone. It takes practice, patience, and honesty with ourselves.
Nearly every faith tradition has something to say about money, wealth, possessions, resources, and the needs of others. Liberal religious communities affirm the importance of this life, more than a future life. We do not dwell on otherworldly concerns, but on of how we live in the world as it is. As a medium of exchange, money is one way that we connect with the world.
Without giving some attention to our relationship with money, we risk ignoring its power and place in our lives. This is the message of Jacob Needleman, author of Money and the Meaning of Life. We are at risk of confusing money with our self-worth and our sense of possibility. In viewing others, we risk seeing money as a measure of character. In relationships, we risk seeing money—or using it–as a substitute for love or as an expression of our hurt or hostility. We need to pay attention, be honest, have some patience.
Go with me on a visit home, to see relatives back in my home state, two years ago. In the prior year, an aunt has passed away. My uncle—her husband, had died suddenly four decades earlier, when I was about five, the same age as their son. She and my cousin moved far away from us the next year. I hadn’t seen her for years before her death. On this day, I am visiting two cousins and another aunt, in my home town. “Did you get your money?” one of them asks.
I look puzzled. “Didn’t you get the letter from the lawyer?”
“No…?” I say. They tell me all about it.
My late Uncle Roy’s estate included an amount of money for all of his nieces and nephews, to be disbursed if the money remained after his widow would pass away. Now she has. So, every group of children of his brothers and sisters will get $48,000, to be divided among them in equal checks. This means three siblings will share a bequest, getting $16,000 each, and a lucky, only child will get the full $48,000. I express my surprise at this news. They get the letter out for me, and I read it. I look at the list of names. My cousins…my brother… everybody. But not me. “I’m not here,” I say.
“Well, honey, you weren’t born yet!” this aunt says.
“Yes, I was, I say. I am the same age as his own son.” He came into our family by adoption at age three. This boy and I were the youngest of the cousins, both of us with older parents. Surely I was too young for Uncle Roy to decide I was a bad nephew and leave me out of his will on purpose. He just forgot me.
“What are you going to do?” one asks, getting excited and curious.
“Well, I’m not sure. I’ll ask my brother about it. Anyway, it’s only money.” The rest of that visit, we make small talk. But my mind is racing. Let’s see, with my brother, each of us would receive $24,000. But I won’t. I was left out! Did my brother get this letter? He hasn’t said anything since I got here yesterday. Is he hiding this from me? I need to ask him.
The others report to me on a recent phone call from another cousin–the most outwardly accomplished of our generation of the family. In spite of a hefty two-person household income, this successful relative never has any money. This cousin has been in touch with all the others. The demand: Sign the acceptance form and send it to the lawyer soon, so the lawyer will forward the checks. I realize that neither this cousin, nor any others, will feel like including little old me in the calculation to receive some inheritance. The only chance is in my big brother’s hands.
My reaction to this news of a surprise inheritance, a potential inheritance, is like not feeling hungry, and then walking into a dining room with a table of steaming food: suddenly I want some of everything!
I get in the rental car and hit the highway to my brother’s house. We’ve planned a dinner out, just the two of us. I think: I’ll wait and see if he brings it up. No, I need to get it over with.
I worry, because he’s been worried about money, unrealistically so in my opinion. He retired early, but his wife has a great job, their house is paid off and he owns a rental property. However, we’re now in the Great Recession, he has no confidence in the government, and the angry programs on talk radio just add to his anxiety.
Well, I won’t make a big deal out of this, I think. Fights over money can tear a family apart. Before today, I didn’t imagine having any money than my own earnings. I think: If he gives me half, I’ll give most of it away. I’ll make that commitment right now. Yes I will!
In the Bible, in the book of Genesis, the brothers Jacob and Esau fight over their birthright, their inheritance. Esau, as the firstborn son, traditionally has the birthright in the family. Yet, when Esau comes back from a hunting trip empty handed, and very hungry, Jacob offers Esau a bowl of stew from the pot that Jacob has prepared. Esau trades in his future inheritance for the short-term gain of satisfying his appetite, his craving. Later, the younger Jacob impersonates his brother to trick their blind, aged father Isaac into giving the fatherly blessing to him instead of to Esau. In the story, this blessing cannot be taken back or transferred, even after the stealing is exposed. This theft launches a tumultuous future for the Hebrew people and sets a standard of disharmony for the whole human family. The first family feud over inheritance! I don’t want us to end up like those guys. I just want us to share.
I’m in my brother’s kitchen. He’s 12 years older, bigger, and stronger. He’s standing, I’m sitting. “I need to talk to you about something,” I say. I tell him about my discovery today and ask him if he’s received the letter. He says no. “Well, the others have,” I say. “You will.”
I explain the situation, and the humor of being the forgotten one. He doesn’t get it. I avoid asking straight out: Will you give me half of your money? Again I explain: “See, each set of siblings has to share each total amount among themselves. Since there are two of us… , each would get…”
“Oh,” he says. He gets it. He pauses. “Yeah, I’ll give you some of that money… if you’re nice to me.” I want to ask: What do you mean by “SOME”? How big a fraction is that? And: What do you mean by NICE?
As a youth I was not nice to my big brother. Looking back on my childhood, I see I was taking out my rage and frustration on him. I was angry at our parents. One was actively alcoholic. They were distracted parents, unhealthy, older than other kids’ parents, and fragile. I was careful not to be a burden. My big brother was happy, athletic, popular. A safe target for my hostility, and strong enough to take it. And he took a lot of it, from me.
He married a year before finishing college, against our angry father’s wishes. After graduation, he was unemployed. He mowed lawns to make money, and borrowed money from our parents. Dad used this fact as license to make my brother feel bad. Every hundred-dollar loan was an I-told-you-so. On my birthday one year, I got a windfall of cash. Maybe I was mowing lawns by this time as well. In any case, I was feeling flush. Brother came to me and asked for a loan, $100. Understandably, he didn’t want to ask Dad again.
I lent him the money, and confirmed the terms of the loan by mail. At age 11, I really liked using the typewriter, and playing with business documents. He received periodic statements of the debt he owed to me. Then postcards in the mail announcing “Past Due.” I don’t remember if he paid me right away, called me names, cried, or got Mom to make me lay off. It was not a nice way to treat him.
I realize now that in pestering my brother I was trying to make a connection with him—an awkward, hostile, counterproductive, 11-year-old way of connecting. When he moved closer to our home, my brother made money doing small-engine repair. I was his agent, putting ads in the local paper, taking phone calls while he was at work. He paid me a small percentage for this role. I would type up statements for my commission: I took business reply envelopes from our father’s office and used Whiteout to change the name to my own. I’d help him keep track of how much he owed me: $2 here, $3 there.
Now, he doesn’t owe me anything, and there’s a big check waiting for him. He can choose to split it with me or he can, quite legally, choose to keep it all.
Fortunately, my brother, the first-born son, has chosen to ignore my treatment of him, or to grant me forgiveness for it. Will he also grant me a full half his money? He could say he needs to save it for his own two grown children. He does eventually give me a half-share, but seems to drag it out, with two installments in the mail. I don’t send a bill this time.
Money has such pull for us, such power. Of course it does. Society is organized around it; it’s how we interact for the things we need and want and for the talents and work that we have to offer. As a medium of exchange, money simplifies our transactions. Yet because it stands for so much that we need and want and love and fear, money makes life complicated.
Most of us learn our attitudes and habits regarding money from the family culture in which we grow up. Growth and healing from unhelpful attitudes calls for attention, effort, and support. How did an 11-year-old loan shark like me learn a more healthy way with money? Maybe I haven’t! I do have some annoying habits about money, as well as healthier ones. I have my times of avoidance and my frantic moments.
But in many ways, I’ve healed and grown. The support for my growth has come from two sources: my friends and my Unitarian Universalist religious communities. Friends who are generous, no matter their wealth or poverty. Religious communities that remind me of the abundance and goodness of my life.
In a UU community, I am invited to appreciate my blessings, and give thanks. I learn about the needs of the world beyond these walls. I learn about generosity. Over the past 25 years, I’ve learned–from UU ministers and church members–that it’s possible to stretch myself and give, and feel good about it. I can give of my money, talents and time, and feel joy in it, and freedom. I can also feel good about earning money—not only gratitude to have it, but satisfaction that I have something to offer that people like you have chosen to support. Of course, mowing lawns for money can offer that same reward. Moreover, with mowing the results are more certain and visible than in ministry.
But as a fearful young person from a family that fought over money, I didn’t know what it meant, spiritually, to be paid or to pay others, to give or to receive. I didn’t know money from a spiritual perspective. As a boy, I went with my mother to a mainline, moderate Protestant Christian church. I recall they had an annual stewardship campaign, as most churches do. We paid a monthly pledge. But I didn’t hear what stewardship really meant. Back in the 1970s, the church was timid about money and your spiritual life. It was timid about sexuality too, another topic that makes people uncomfortable. Both topics do, even though they are important ones.
As an adult finding Unitarian Universalism, I found a place that looks at serious matters honestly. I learned what stewardship means. What it means to me: taking a good look at what has been handed on to you for your use and your care. Whether it’s the local environment, your neighborhood, your country—it is handed on to you for using, tending, and passing along to
others. Stewardship recognizes that we stand on the shoulders of generations and institutions that existed before we did.
Stewardship recognizes that what we do, how we live, what we give, will affect the lives of others, including those who come after us. We live for a moment in the stream of life, and it flows on. Stewardship is about connectedness and interdependence. It’s about belonging to one another, belonging to the past and the future.
A friend of mine is a Mormon historian. I ask him: “Does everybody there really give away 10 percent of their income to the church?” Yes, he says, most of them do tithe–and they make offerings on top of that. Mormons have the practice of a fast offering, he tells me. (I’ve learned that other traditions practice this a well.) Unless it causes medical problems, they won’t eat for one day a month, and will give away they money they would have spent on food. They give it away so others may eat. He says the idea is that all their bounty comes from God, and to make a tithe or an offering is merely to give some of it back.
As a young adult, I learned from my ministers that there are UUs who have a different idea of God—or the idea that there is no God at all—but who still have a practice of giving. They make a goal of giving away a percentage of their income due to their connection to the community, to people and the earth. From my UU communities, I got the idea to set a target of giving away 10% of my income, and move toward that target over time. I now give about 5% of my yearly income to the congregation and 5% to other organizations that I care about. I didn’t learn to do this from my family. I learned it from people like you.
I’ve read that Peter Singer, the controversial professor of ethics, gives away 20 percent of his income every year to important organizations. He’s an atheist, so he gives not out of the fear of God or for the love of God. He does it because he can, and because his giving can make a big difference in the lives of others.
I am now attending a doctor of ministry program, part time. The seminary is not a UU school, but a progressive, interdenominational seminary. That’s where my share of the money from our uncle’s bequest is now going. This inheritance will cover 2/3 of the cost of the degree, so it helps a lot. I thank my Uncle Roy and my big brother for the money. I love the school, and don’t mind supporting it with my tuition payments. The young, entering ministry students there—in the master’s degree program—give me hope for progressive religion. During the semester, I attend chapel services on Tuesday before lunch. The music is diverse and fun, sermons relevant and helpful. At every service the campus chaplain announces the offering, which goes to a cause chosen by the preacher for that service. I look around and think: Most of the people here are beginning ministry students, living on loans. But I’ve realized that the offering is a lesson for the ministry students. It’s a model about how to ask with grace and honesty, how to show confidence and kindness in asking. The chaplain says people at the school give “out of volition, not coercion.” Free-will, not pressure.
He says: “We ask for your financial support for this work, and for your prayers.” I decide that if they can ask, I can respond, so I participate in the offerings.
Nearly every faith tradition has something to say about money. Not because it’s bad. Not because it’s worthy of worship either. We should not idolize money, nor should we avoid it.
But we can take it seriously. Like most resources, it is limited: like our time, our attention, our talents, our health—it is limited, and important.
However much, or however little, we have of money…how we deal with it is a way to practice and grow in our sense of stewardship. We can practice, and we can strive to gain our money responsibly, receive it with gratitude, lend it or borrow it carefully, spend it thoughtfully, and share it with joy.
Responsible, grateful, careful, thoughtful, joyful. Joyful.
So may it be. Blessed be, and amen.
[i] January 8, 2012. Found at www.moneyville.ca/article/1111131–what-to-do-when-exchanging-gifts-with-a-cheapskate.
Filed under: Becoming and Being Part of a UU Congregation, Comparative Religion, Graduate Theological school/PSR, International, Trends in Religion, UU Denomination and Pacific Central District News and Views | Tags: ICUU, Kenya UU, Transylvania Unitarian, worship
Today will be the second full day of the council meeting of the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists, at South Sea Hotel Resort (don’t be too impressed) in Dumaguete City, on Negros Island.
Tuesday night I slept 9 hours and Wednesday had more coffee, so I nearly made it through the day without a nap or nodding off. Today, Wednesday, I’m very rested. It rained heavily last night, and the A/C was so loud in the bedroom that you heard the rain (and the roosters) only while in the bathroom. The humidity makes my finger tips stick to these keys, but it’s much less cooler outside. I sit on the patio as the young ladies set up for breakfast. The wind and the waves are strong.
Yesterday began and ended with worship. The man from Mexico City read poems in Spanish and translated them into English, introduced chocolate as a gift from Latin America (chocolatl is an Aztec word), and introduced a chocolate communion. We sang Spirit of Life, and a few of us knew the Spanish Fuente de Amor to sing those words with him. After dinner and the evening session of the ICUU Council, we walked about 10 minutes to get to the headquarters and local church of the UU Church of the Philippines. I’ll attach pictures after our ICUU President posts them. We gathered in a circle of plastic chairs, inside the building, but the circle spilled out into the grounds.
Wednesday evening worship was led by Joshphat, a young man who is secretary of the UU Council of Kenya. Tall, thin, very dark, with a big smile that showed with every word he spoke. He wore long black pants and a baggy shirt of tan corduroy. Afterward I told him would be dying and asked if he was hot. He was, but he had not expected this hot, humid climate. He said Nairobi was not as bad. That made his earlier invitation to visit Kenya seem feasible. I offered him tee shirts, but he said he had some lighter clothing.
He had typed out the short worship service, and it was copied for us to have as handouts. It was four “Prayer Subjects” and then singing in Kiswahili. He read aloud the paragraphs of the prayer subjects: The people of the Philippines for their warmth, and for the victims of floods and landslides and the recent quake. His country of Kenya, still dealing with political unrest. The people of Somalia, Syria Egypt, Libya, “for peace, stability and prosperity in their countries.” The people at the conference, its organizers, and the families we have left back home. We stood to “hold a one minute silence reflecting on the subjects” and read in unison a prayer he had written out.
Then he got his guitar and taught us two short sung responses in Kiswahili, over and over until we got it. Then he sang short verses, and we responded. It was celebratory and prayerful (I could tell by the spirit of the singing and by the words translated). After that, we sang one of the refrains over and over and walked around and around, shaking hands and greeting one another with the sung refrain, hakuna matata. People of all nations did this just right–the words, the tune, the smiles, the melee of fellowship.
THE MOST MOVING PART OF THE DAY
Right after worship, the Bishop of the Unitarian Church in Transylvania (Hungarian-speaking province in Romania) asked for us to quiet down. Earlier that day at the council meeting, Kenya had been recognized as our newest “Emerging Group” of Unitarian Universalists in the world. (This means they are still in formation but are on their way to becoming members of the ICUU.) As the representative of the oldest Unitarian church in the world (450 years), he had some gifts to present to the Kenyans, the newest Unitarian church in the world. He gave a small white crocheted table cover (because hospitality is of primary importance in religious community), a ceramic candlestick glazed with designs from Transylvania (and a candle), a wall hanging of the Translyvania’s Declaration of Religious Tolerance (1658) from the Unitarian king, John Sigismund, and another wall hanging of a house blessing.
BACK AT THE BAR
I chatted over a beer in the hotel bar with a man from the staff of the Unitarian and Free Christian Churches in the United Kingdom, and a member of the congregation in Toronto. I also got to know a young woman painter from Maryland, who will be moving to California to attend seminary soon.
Filed under: Adult Enrichment and Group Meetings, Becoming and Being Part of a UU Congregation, Comparative Religion, Comparative Religion, Graduate Theological school/PSR, International, Religious Studies: History, Trends in Religion, UU Denomination and Pacific Central District News and Views
Appendix III: Is It Christian? Historical Details on American Unitarianism
This question has been a source of conflict within our movement, especially on the Unitarian side of our history. It was a dispute about how far liberalism in religion could go and still resemble its original form—and still resemble a religious movement. In the 1800s, as ministers and other Unitarians moved west and gathered new congregations, many claimed the label Unitarian but not the label Christian. They spoke of “ethical religion.” They argued that attempts to describe the movement as Christian were infringements on spiritual freedom and the liberty of religious conscience. Unitarians who led the denomination in Boston and those who lived closer to Boston than to the Midwest argued that we would risk losing our roots and sense of identity if we did not, as whole, describe our movement as a liberal form of Christianity.
Points in history often identified as the departure from considering ourselves Christian include the Transcendentalist Movement of the 1830s to 1850s (a literary, philosophical and spiritual movement led by resigned Unitarian minister Ralph Waldo Emerson and other intellectuals, most of whom had grown up as Unitarians).
Other factors included the Free Religious Association (founded in 1867 by radical Unitarians unhappy with a sole Christian focus), and the Western Unitarian Conference (founded by radicals to recruit ministers and plant churches in order to spread Unitarianism to what is now the Middle West). In 1887, this Conference adopted a document entitled “The Things Most Commonly Believed Today Among Us.” Written by William Channing Gannett, it allows for the presence of non-Christian Unitarian beliefs.
A document called the Humanist Manifesto, was published as a magazine article in 1929 calling for a reform of religions so they serve human needs rather than restricting the full flourishing of human life for adherence to disputable doctrines. IT carried the signatures of 15 Unitarian ministers, 17 college professors (primarily in philosophy) and one Universalist minister.[1] All of the signers were white men. During much of the twentieth century, many Unitarians (and, since 1961, UUs) have referred to themselves, and often to their whole congregations, as Humanists. For many, this has meant agnostic or even atheist.
To an outside visitor, a typical UU church service in much of the twentieth century might have seemed like a long lecture with a few pieces of classical music, a song or two, and announcements about life in the church and local community. However, since the early 1980s, many UU ministers and lay members have “rediscovered” spirituality: the importance of personal spiritual practice, study of the Bible and other scriptures, and exploration of one’s religious background, including Jewish, Christian or other traditional rituals in families. Perhaps the recent openness to fellowship with indigenous Unitarians or Universalists in other countries is a reflection of our recent rediscovery of spiritual expressiveness.
For more information: “Unitarianism,” by Mark Harris, The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity, Daniel Patte, ed. (Cambridge, 2010: Cambridge University Press), 1263-4.
Filed under: Becoming and Being Part of a UU Congregation, Comparative Religion, Comparative Religion, Family Ministry, Graduate Theological school/PSR, Inspiration, International, Religious Studies: History, Travels, Trends in Religion, UU Denomination and Pacific Central District News and Views
Appendix II: Partner Church History—UU Church of the Philippines and North America[1]
| Philippine Church Location | Partner Church Relationship | Year |
| Ulay, Negros Occidental | Partnered with UU church in San Mateo, California | 2001 |
| Calapayan, Negros Oriental | Partnered with UU church in Montclair, California | 2007 |
| Caican, Negros Oriental | Partnered with UU church in Honolulu, Hawaii | 2001 |
| Banaybanay, N. Oriental | Partnered with UU church in Appleton, Wisconsin | 2011 |
| Cansayan-Aquino, N. Oriental | Partnered with UU church in Castine, Maine | 2009 |
| Malingin, Negros Occidental | Partnered with UU church San Diego, California | 2007 |
| Doldol, Negros Occidental | Involved with UU women’s group, Annapolis, Maryland | 2006 |
| Nagbinlod, Negros Oriental | Seeking partner; in conversation: Adelaide (Australia) | |
| Nataban, Negros Occidental | Seeking partner; in conversation: Sacramento | |
| Dumaguete City, N. Oriental | Seeking partner | |
| BagongSilang, N. Occidental | Seeking partner | |
| Bicutan, Metro Manila | Seeking partner | |
| Samayao, Negros Oriental | Partnership lapsed in 2007 with Hayward, California | 2001 |
[1] Lee Boeke Burke, UU Partner Church Council, in an email correspondence with author, December 10, 2011.
Filed under: Comparative Religion, Graduate Theological school/PSR, International, Religious Studies: History, UU Denomination and Pacific Central District News and Views
In 1958, Toshio Yoshioka, a Universalist from Japan made a visit to the Universalist Church of the Philippines to provide information and advice to the Universalist Church of America and the Universalist Service Committee. (Yoshioka and another Japanese man had graduated from the Universalists’ St. Lawrence Theological School in Canton, N.Y., in 1954, and returned to Japan. Universalists had begun a mission to Japan in 1890, with limited success. By 1936 there were only six congregations, and the Second World War ended the mission.) [i]
Yoshioka spent much of his time in the company of Toribio Quimada. Noting “extreme poverty” and “little or no education” among the people, Yoshioka described the meager food, hand-built homes, and lack of gas, electricity, running water, or toilets. Yet, he said, “they are happy people… thankful of what they have and they were one of the most hospitable people I have met.”[ii] [This could be my own description of what I observed in March of 2011. The food they served our group was plentiful and varied, but I am not sure that reflects their diet. Their UUCP headquarters had subsidized each village church that hosted us for a meal.]
Yoshioka said he did not like the food and feared their “unsanitary” handling of it, and he could not sleep well on their schedule (even though they gave him an army cot so he would not have to sleep on a mat on the floor, as they did. He wrote: “They go to bed at about midnight and at four thirty in the morning they are already up and singing their morning hymn.” Perhaps this way of life maximized the cooler hours of the morning and evening.
Yoshioka reported there were “major congregations in Negros, some in Mindanao, and one in Cebu which is just starting,” and he visited the island of Cebu before departing for Japan. I have encountered no records to show that congregations continued on those two islands; none are there now.
Regarding theology, he said the church members “were surprised and relieved by the… teaching of universal salvation and loving God rather than angry God. In fact, I was asked time and time again if they could really be saved in the end.” They asked him questions about the Bible and the nature of Jesus “with utmost interest.” He said:
“They were happy to know that my answers were the same as those which had been given by Mr. Quimada before.” People on Negros “sacrificed days in coming to meet me and to listen to me, which shows their eagerness… to know about Universalism [and not because] of their curiosity to see a stranger from Japan.”
He recounted his refusal to ride horseback, and Quimada’s insistence that it was the only way to get to the mountain villages. At first a child led a small horse while Yoshioka rode it in great fear; later he got comfortable with it. “We visited the house of an old woman where we had a memorial service of her deceased grandson. “Mr. Dilantar … had a very nice house and three lovely daughters…. [A] relatively well to do landlord, … he is one of the important personalities in the Philippine Universalist work.” Yoshioka also met “three of the most intellectual sympathizers [of the church] …, that is the attorney, the mayor, and … a school teacher,” but he noted they were not yet members.
[i] Minister and historian David Bumbaugh argues that the Universalist message refuting eternal damnation could not gain traction in a society without the widespread acceptance of orthodox Christian doctrine. For an interesting (undated and without an author, but from the UUA website) Power Point presentation on Universalist and Unitarian engagement in India, Japan, and the Philippines, see http://www.uua.org/documents/…/uu_internatl_history_01.pps
[ii] UUA Overseas & Interfaith Relations Director Records, Correspondence, 1957-70. bMS 1220/15 “Universalist Church of the Philippines Survey, September, 1958.” Indigenous Unitarian Universalist Societies, 1986-1987. Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts. All references to Yoshioka’s report come from this source.
Filed under: Comparative Religion, Graduate Theological school/PSR, International, Religious Studies: History, Trends in Religion, UU Denomination and Pacific Central District News and Views
The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UUA) is the result of a merger (50 years ago) of the Unitarian denomination and the Universalist denomination, both of which emerged on the left wing of the Protestant population in New England in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Both of our denominational movements rose up in reaction to dominant Calvinist orthodoxy. (In contrast, Universalism in the Philippines, though started by a former Pentecostal, has always existed in a land where more than 80 percent of the population is Roman Catholic.) Unitarianism in the United States originated in Boston, among ministers of congregational churches who identified themselves as liberal Christians. We tie their expression of a separate religious identity of Unitarian to a sermon given by William Ellery Channing in 1819 entitled “Unitarian Christianity.” They emphasized the use of reason in interpreting the Holy Bible, and emphasized the humanity of Jesus and the inherent dignity of all people, rather than inherent depravity.
Universalists also originated in New England, but in a variety of Protestant churches, not only congregational ones. Universalists argued against the doctrines of substitutionary atonement, salvation by election, and the idea of eternal damnation. They proclaimed that all souls would be brought into harmony with God, who was a loving parent rather than a harsh judge. Unitarian clergy and parishioners were typically educated and elite members of their communities. Universalist clergy were often self-taught, and apprenticed in ministry rather than trained in a divinity school. Their parishes were often rural, and the preachers more given to “circuit-riding” and evangelism for their Gospel of universal salvation.
Today, Unitarian Universalist congregations in North America are made up mostly of people who have been to college and hold professional jobs. We are mostly a white, middle-class population. Our average church size is 150 individual adult members, but with some ranging to 1,000 members. Most churches have paid staff, at least a minister, who holds an M. Div. Our members are socially liberal, especially on gender and sexual orientation issues, and our members predominantly are progressive in politics.
[i] “Thomas Starr King,” Architect of the Capitol website, visited December 11, 2011. http://www.aoc.gov/cc/art/nsh/king_t.cfm
[ii] Russell E. Miller, The Larger Hope, vol. 1 (Boston: Unitarian Universalist Association, 1979), 162. Volume I covers 1770-1970. Cited in Lawyer. See note 14.
[iii] I plan to explore these statistics when I next have access to Edwin Gaustad and Philip L. Barlow, New Historical Atlas of Religion in America (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
[iv] David S. Lawyer, “West Coast Universalism,” sermon delivered in Pasadena, Calif., July 16, 1995. http://www.lafn.org/~dave/uu/universalism/west_coast_universalism.txt
[v] A Welsh immigrant, Jones was a theologically radical Unitarian (not identifying as Christian and opposed to official statements of the movement as a Christian one). For more information, see the online Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography: http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/jenkinlloydjones.html
[vi] Arnold Crompton, Unitarianism on the Pacific Coast (Boston: Beacon Press,1957), 144.
[vii] Arnold Crompton, Unitarianism on the Pacific Coast (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957), 91.
