PERSONAL REFLECTION 01/29/12

When I get within about seventy feet of the fence, I’ll begin my last turn and be done for the day.  Behind me the wide drag on the back of the tractor will leave a perfectly straight cut across fifty acres of field that I’ve crossed repeatedly as I scraped the earth free of  milkweed and other unwanted vegetation ahead of the next planting.   In my sixteenth summer, this is all I’ve done from the cool of the morning to the high heat of the day, ride an unmuffled tractor through a cloud of dust.  I pull close to the gate, turn off the engine, drop down into the soft earth that I’ve so loudly disturbed.

 And suddenly the silence seems deafening.  I can hear sounds of trucks on the road, out beyond where the dust is settling, but they seem incredibly far away.  I am struck by what feels like the turning of the earth.  The slight curve away of the land into the giant ball.   The spin of a globe on its axis.  The hurtling through space of a planet.    For a brief moment I can fell the galactic carnival ride.  Aw, jeez!  And then I’m a kid standing in an empty field again.

I light the chalice for the moments when the big blue marble reaches out and takes our hand.

PERSONAL REFLECTION 01/29/12

When I get within about seventy feet of the fence, I’ll begin my last turn and be done for the day.  Behind me the wide drag on the back of the tractor will leave a perfectly straight cut across fifty acres of field that I’ve crossed repeatedly as I scraped the earth free of  milkweed and other unwanted vegetation ahead of the next planting.   In my sixteenth summer, this is all I’ve done from the cool of the morning to the high heat of the day, ride an unmuffled tractor through a cloud of dust.  I pull close to the gate, turn off the engine, drop down into the soft earth that I’ve so loudly disturbed.

 And suddenly the silence seems deafening.  I can hear sounds of trucks on the road, out beyond where the dust is settling, but they seem incredibly far away.  I am struck by what feels like the turning of the earth.  The slight curve away of the land into the giant ball.   The spin of a globe on its axis.  The hurtling through space of a planet.    For a brief moment I can fell the galactic carnival ride.  Aw, jeez!  And then I’m a kid standing in an empty field again.

I light the chalice for the moments when the big blue marble reaches out and takes our hand.

I’ve enjoyed many articles about ministry and healthy congregational dynamics by the mainline church consultant Anthony Robinson.

This article is especially good.  If you are in any church/denomination whose polity is congregational, or even one with a fair degree of congregational decision making, I think it’s relevant.   If you are a Humanist, Buddhist, Pagan, or Jew then the Christian language and context of some of the paragraphs may not be to your liking.  If you can’t translate into your own faith idiom, that’s okay, just read them and move on to the other paragraphs.

If you are allergic to words like “follower,” I beg your patience with the gist of his article.   In fact, there’s a good definition of the term followership, as coined by my UU colleague Paul Beedle.  And no less an authority than Harvard’s Ronald Heifetz is quoted in defining leadership NOT as solitary authoritarianism but in the skill to be present and help the community face its big questions and its big challenges–together.

If you can’t open it, let me know and I can lend you the paper copy.

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.

As young man, Toribio S. Quimada moved with his Roman Catholic family from the Visayan island of Cebu to nearby Negros.  They lived with a Presbyterian uncle, who had a Holy Bible.  The young man read the Bible for the first time and became a Protestant.  Later he got involved with a Pentecostal movement and joined it.  He became a preacher and musician, spreading its message in island villages.  One day in the mail Quimada received a package of books wrapped in an American newspaper.  On the paper was a directory listing of churches.   Looking for his Pentecostal denomination, Iglesia Universal de Cristo, he noticed instead the Universalist Church of America.  Sounds close!  This Universalist church was located in Wisconsin.  He wrote a letter to it and waited for an answer.  Nobody answered.  A few years later, he looked in an almanac, and again he saw the Universalist Church.  He wrote another letter, this time to Massachusetts.  A reply came this time, and a long-distance friendship began.

Though he had been a Pentecostal, Quimada found the message of this American church to match his own views.  What Universal salvation means is that everybody’s going to heaven.  He loved the gospel of this church:  God is love.  Everybody is a child of God.  Quimada wanted to spread the word, so he wrote the Americans:  “Will you send us missionaries?” Well, we don’t have missionaries, they said but they will help.  They sent worship and education materials, Bibles and other books, and a little money.  Toribio put his life into this new ministry, traveling from village to village on horseback, or hiking on foot.  He would preach for an hour in front of market places, playing his guitar, making friends.  People listened to him, some argued, and some of them came to church.  Quimada gathered church members, recruited men to be ministers, and started new congregations.   To the poorest of the poor on this island, they spread the message:  Be joyful!  God is love.  You are a child of God![1]

As Toribio spread the faith in the peasant class of his island, over in the United States the once-numerous Universalists were in decline.   The Universalist Church of the Philippines was incorporated in 1955.  The Universalist Church of America ended six years later, when it merged with the larger and wealthier American Unitarian Association, in 1961.

The first Unitarian or Universalist church on the Pacific Coast was the Unitarian congregation established in 1850 and served by the legendary Thomas Starr King in 1860.[i]  In his 1957 book Unitarianism on the Pacific Coast, the Rev. Arnold Crompton wrote that Unitarian ministers and lay leaders came west following the California Gold Rush and the completion of the transcontinental railroad.  Crompton attributes the growth of Unitarianism to five factors:

First, “transplanted” New England Unitarians wanted a church like those back home….  Second, the tightening of the lines of orthodoxy [in the larger society] gave rise to conscience problems among liberal Christians which led them to seek their own company….  Third, direct missionary activity… established churches or planted seeds of future churches.  Fourth, the great ministers… by their preaching, their leadership, and their lives attracted people to their churches and denomination.  The fifth factor was the changing intellectual climate [especially scientific challenges to traditional theology].

While conclusive evidence is lacking about the Universalists, it seems fair to assume that similar economic promises and the transcontinental railroad brought them westward as well.  Appendix I shows the dates when most Unitarian or Universalist congregations were established on the Pacific Coast in the nineteenth century.  While the dates are similar between the two denominations, it is notable that many of the Universalist churches did not survive.  One that did, in Pasadena, was blessed by a large endowment from Amos Throop, who also founded the California Institute of Technology.

In the rest of the United States, as the number of Universalist churches and members declined in the twentieth century. The standard history of the movement reports that the American Almanac for 1832 lists Universalism as the sixth largest denomination.[ii] However, in a sermon given in 1995 and revised later on his website, David Lawyer cited census and other date to estimate that 49,000 to 64,000 Universalist church members existed between 1890 and 1906.[iii]  Lawyer argues that, contrary to many claims, Universalism was in decline before the twentieth century, and may never have grown as much as its early leaders announced.[iv]

The Unitarians as a denomination had a stronger missionary activity on the west coast, fueled by the Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones[v], a Unitarian leader from the Midwest, and Charles Wendte, who served local churches but also, as part of the Pacific Coast Unitarian Conference, led the planting of many Unitarian churches on the coast.  For a congregationally-based tradition, missionary work entailed pulling together enough local people with liberal Christian beliefs (or better, some with Unitarian backgrounds from elsewhere) and gathering them into a congregation.  This work included advertising, publications, and lectures, working on local causes and civic projects, holding worship and dedicating a church building as soon as affordable.

In 1892, the Unitarian churches in Los Angeles, National City, Ontario, Pomona, Santa Ana, Redland, San Bernardino, San Diego and Sierra Madre attended a conference to organize the Southern California Liberal Conference “as a subdivision of the [Pacific] Coast Conference.”[vi] This reflects a missionary optimism.  Yet few of these churches may have been strong, and half those towns no longer have a UU church.  Just a few years earlier, in 1886, Unitarian leader Charles Wendte (heavily involved in church-planting efforts for the faith) listed only four “stable Unitarian churches on the Pacific Coast”:  San Francisco, Portland, Santa Barbara, San Diego.[vii]

Though based in Boston like the Unitarians, the Universalist Church in America and its state conferences were a much less centrally organized body, and membership statistics are unclear.  While the Universalists’ original evangelistic activity on the other side of the continent was impressive, it is unclear to me whether this Gospel zeal is what led to their founding of West Coast congregations.

In any case, the beginnings of the Unitarian Universalist Church on the island of Negros had no connection to the westward movement of either denomination in the United States.  More recent encounters and relationships do show a mostly-Pacific orientation.  But the founding of the liberal faith in the Philippines was both accidental and home grown.

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.

http://www.uua.org/uuagovernance/officers/president/moralespeter/192145.shtml

Excerpt

I have observed a number of things that speak to me of the truly historic opportunities 
and challenges that are now before us. Here is a partial list:

We have known for many years that the number of people who identify as UUs is
 about four times the membership of our congregations (about 160,000 adult
 members and about 650,000 people who identify as UUs). In other words, for 
every adult member there are three non-members who say they are Unitarian
 Universalist.
The second largest gathering of UUs, after General Assembly, is the Southeast UU
 Summer Institute (SUUSI). A significant number of people who attend SUUSI 
year after year do not belong to any UU congregation. There are other UU camps
 and conferences that draw similarly large numbers of unaffiliated people.
The majority of children raised as UUs do not join UU congregations when they are
 young adults. However, they continue to identify as UUs and share core UU
 values. Often they have close friendships with fellow young adults they met at
 church or at “youth cons.”
Some of our committed and generous donors do not belong to congregations. I
 recently met with a donor who gave us $300,000 and yet has never been a 
member of a congregation. A few weeks ago I spoke with another non-UU who
 has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars.
An increasing percentage of seminarians choose a community ministry rather than 
parish ministry. They see themselves as having a vocation for ministry, but not
 for parish ministry. Our ministry extends to prisons, hospitals, the military, and
 organizations that seek to build a more compassionate and just world.
Initiatives like Standing on the Side of Love are founded on the realization that many
 non-UUs share our values of justice, equity, and compassion.
Our growth in terms of members of congregations has been stagnant, despite a
 number of ambitious growth efforts.
Demographic research shows that people are less likely to attend traditional worship services of any denomination, even if they consider themselves religious.

Summary

The central conviction driving this proposal is that our core values appeal to far more
 people than are attracted to (or likely to be attracted to) our congregations. We have 
always treated this as a problem to be solved by devising ways to get people to become 
members of our congregations. But the reality of today’s world is that not everyone who
shares our core values will want to become part of a traditional congregation. The fact
 that so many share our values is an enormous opportunity, not a problem. The future
 relevance of our faith may well depend on whether we can create a religious movement
 beyond, as well as within, the parish. I am confident that together we can seize this
historic opportunity for our faith.

The national headquarters of the UUCP is in Dumaguete City (Negros Oriental), a small college city on the coast.  It has fewer cars than motorbikes, including motorcycle taxis with sidecars, known as  pedi-cabs.  Most congregations are in mountain villages, with a few in coastal villages.  For money and food, the people grow rice, sugar cane, corn, root vegetables.  Some have livestock. On the coast, they fish.  Most of their ministers have no more than a high-school education. They learned their ministries on the job, with mentoring by elders.  There’s no salary, so they have other jobs too:  farmer, teacher, school principal.  The national headquarters helps with a little money and a clergy uniform—a shirt with a flaming chalice logo (it’s been the logo of the Unitarian Universalist denominations in the U. S. and Canada for several decades).  The main—but not only—dialect on the Island is Cebuano, rather than Tagalog (also called the Filipino language).  Given that most villagers have not completed high school, most do not speak English.  Translators come in handy on visits to the villages.

This Eric Stetson is not the Bahai-bashing musician who claims to be a UU.  Find OUR Eric on Google Plus.  His website is ericstetsonmusic.com.

Note that OUR Eric Stetson has the word “music” in his web address.

There are a few other Eric Stetsons out there, but none like ours.  I am Pastor Cranky and you can trust me.