The course Remember Universalism into Life by Raymond Nasemann and Elizabeth Strong raises an essential, enduring question: “Can you be a member of a Unitarian Universalist congregation and not be a Unitarian Universalist, and not know it?” Most of the people participating in the discussion when I led this course responded, “No.” For me, the answer was and is, “Yes.” Is signing the membership book and entering into a covenant with the congregation sufficient to become a Unitarian Universalist? Is something more required? This raises the issue of conversion.
A “religious problem” that led to the Great Awakening of 1740-43 was an inadequate number of religious conversions. During that period the revival meeting became a means of re-creating a sense of the power and immediacy of the Holy Spirit: An emotional, ecstatic experience produced a conversion and testified to the presence of divine power. Our forbear, Charles Chauncey, thought that the revivalists corrupted religion. He, like the Unitarians to follow, believed in a gradual process of conversion which involved understanding and judgment and will, as well as an emotional and spiritual component.
Ironically, a contemporary religious problem for Unitarian Universalism is the absence of conversion, gradual or otherwise. This is not a new problem as various essays by James Luther Adams attest. In his Berry Street Lecture in 1941, he spoke of the necessity of conversion because religious liberals were “largely an uncommitted and therefore a self-frustrating people.” To solve this lack of an ultimate commitment, he believed, “We need conversion within ourselves. Only by some such revolution can we be seized by a prophetic power.... Only by some such conversion can we be possessed by a love that will not let us go. And when that has taken place, we will know that it is not our wills alone that have acted....”
Conversion in our tradition (correctly understood as a gradual and continuing process) historically involved entering into a covenant. The vertical dimension of this covenant connected the individual to a transcending, ultimate reality, commitment or value. Given our theological diversity, the terminus of the vertical dimension has included God, Goddess, nature, the good, ultimate concern, reverence for life, life force, philosophic truth, and humanity. The horizontal dimension of covenant encompassed the gathered congregation (and defined a relationship with the larger society). These two axes play different roles in the transformation that occurs when a person moves in a new direction spiritually. The vertical terminus may change, or a previously absent (or latent) vertical dimension may emerge. This dimension involves “turning to” that which is transcendent, while the horizontal dimension involves “turning with” the members of the congregation. Conversion may require moving further in a specific direction or a change in a new direction, a change in heart, mind, and soul. Conversion is the process by which one’s identity, will, and action become increasingly informed by the obligations of covenantal relationships and religious depth.
The process of conversion weakens when it becomes more implicit than explicit, or as Tillich would say, more latent than manifest. The absence of an explicit process of conversion in Unitarian Universalism is particularly problematic because we are comprised largely of “come-outers,” people in search of religious commitments more authentic and reliable than the ones with which they were raised. Our initial appeal to the come-outer is our commitment to freedom of belief. This is often translated into an invitation to “come as you are,” with more emphasis on “freedom-from” than on “freedom-for.” But seldom do people join a congregation because they are fully content with “who they are” or with the direction in which they have been traveling. To be a seeker is to be discontent. Conversion is the path of continuing deepening. It is not a result of coercion, but of generous invitation. It is not the imposition of belief, but the challenge and support to build one’s own theology.
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2 comments:
I think it's a uniquely boomer thing to be concerned with you "you are" and whether one should change. Not original of course, but it's our generation that's been so preoccupied with the question.
Generally, it's been for ill...
Sitting with my father in law in NJ...so just a quick break. Puts me in mind of Joe Campbell's statement that what people are deep down looking for is not so much the meaning of life as the experience of being fully alive. I think we who self-select into UU tend to be people who have wrestled a lot with definitions and teachings that didn't make sense to us--"left brain" stuff. But then we get almost obsessive about that, and I even see it in colleagues; we go right for the meaning of the words and finding the best/right words (an interesting experience with a presentation by Mark Hicks of Meadville Lombard on that score). I think our movement's great need, in many cases after affirming the "left brain" material, is to balance that with other parts of our brain, with practices such as meditation, centering prayer, even practices that just bring about "flow." Andrew Newberg's neuro-science work on this ("How God Changes Your Brain") is germane from a meta-position. How this relates to conversion I'm not sure.
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