Hello I'm Lee Wells and this is where I work in my other life as a Planning Technician. I mention this because like many UUs I don't advertise the fact that I am a Unitarian Universalist to many people. I have heard the standard, UUs can believe anything! comment. I have even been told some people pray for me to which I reply 'well I suppose someone has to'. Doubtless most probably don't 'get' my response, but to me if make them think about it, I think my purpose is served.

One of my co-workers even challenged me to PROVE Unitarianism was a religion (he refuses to add Universalist to our name its just too long I suppose)

So after a couple of minutes I came to what I thought was a fairly logical conclusion I could prove UUs were a church the same way the Internal Revenue Service did.

I know that's not very 'touchy feely' but I guess that's the way I am. I like hard facts, no contest. As we all know there isn't much use arguing with the IRS. Also the ways that the Internal Revenue Service determines whether a church is a church or not turn out to be pretty concrete.

So if you ever find yourself in a dark alley with someone who needs you to prove Unitarian Universalism is a religion as if your life depends on it, Take Heart! According to the IRS we are a religion.

• Distinct legal existence • Recognized creed and form of worship • Definite and distinct ecclesiastical government • Formal code of doctrine and discipline

• Distinct religious history • Membership oot associated with any other church or

denomination • Organization of ordained ministers • Ordained ministers selected after completing prescribed

courses of study • Literature of its own • Established places of worship • Regular congregations • Regular religious services • Sunday schools for the relig.ious instruction of the young • Schools forthe preparation ofits members

These are the bullet points for the IRS to define a religion. You can read them all if you want but the 'Distinct religious history' one got me.

Our church has some martyrs, and martyrs sort of take my breath away, the mention of someone dying for their ideals doesn't seem to me to be something a person would decide to do very easily. Our history indicates to me that we as a people are above all things concerned with truth.

Perhaps if you are asked to explain your faith this highly abbreviated history may help.

The man you see pictured was named Origen, Origen of Alexandria, He lived from the year 184/185 till 253/254 or so. He was an early Christian theologian who wrote about 6000 works. He was one of the greatest biblical scholars of the early Church. He was almost a Unitarian and a Universalist before the words were coined.

One of his followers was Arius. The man who made the first Council of Nicea necessary by speaking out against the Trinity.

Nicea hosted 318 delegates from May 20th 325 till June 19th of the same year.

It was basically a church committee, and yes there have been church committees for over 1600 years .. The main purpose of the council was to resolve disagreements from within the Church over the nature of the Son in his relationship to the Father.

Bishop Alexander and the deacon Athanasius argued that Jesus Christ was eternal, just like the Father was. Arius (only a priest) denied that the Son was God in the same sense that the Father was God. According to Arius, the Son was not eternal nor of the same substance with the Father, but was a creature. [in other words the evidence based argument]

The council decided against the Arians overwhelmingly (of the estimated 250-318 voting delegates, all but two agreed to sign the creed and these two, along with Arius, were banished to lllyria.) As you can see from the picture, Arius was 'put down' literally.

Labeled a heretic he would die under mysterious circumstances in the year 336

A heretic is a person who makes false claims according to religious authorities. In Christianity, the orthodox theology of the church is thought to be based on divine revelation, and heretics are viewed as perversely rejecting the guidance of the church.

The first known usage of the term in a legal context was in the year 380 by the Edict of Thess-a-lon-ica of Theo-do-sius I, which made Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire. Prior to the issuance of this edict, the Church had no state-sponsored support for any particular legal mechanism to counter what it perceived as "heresy". By this edict the state's authority and that of the Church became somewhat overlapping. One of the outcomes of this blurring of Church and state was the sharing of state powers of legal enforcement with church authorities. This reinforcement of the Church's authority gave church leaders the power to, in effect, pronounce the death sentence upon those whom the church considered heretical.

That one could die for an idea is probably why one does not see writings of a Unitarian or Universalist nature until about 1531. Also there weren't printing presses most of that time and the literate were trained by the state church. The same state churches that gave us the Crusades, the various Inquisitions, and various wars. They also burned Joan of Arc at the stake, and outlawed the Knights Templar.

This brings us to the 1300s when all of Europe was engulfed in the Bubonic plague, which was blamed on another religion. [But was actually because trade with the far east had started ] Because people that kept cats might not get bit by the rat fleas that carry the plague, to people who didn't understand germ theory, witchcraft seemed a likely culprit.

Things changed with the invention of the printing press which happened in 1439 in Europe. Its spark lead to "The Enlightenment" of the 1500s.

Michael Servetus published the book" On the Errors of the Trinity " in 1531. After 23 years of" running from the law", Servetus was brought to trial and burned at the stake along with one copy of his book. His book is available as a PDF today. Didn't his accuser understand that making a martyr of someone just makes them more popular? On the other hand perhaps his accuser was correct. Back then, many people could not read, because the government didn't run education, religion did. Only men were allowed to read, since women were treated as property. A basic literacy rate of 25%> might be estimated in larger towns. That is probably why if you Google Servetus you get about 270,000 results, however his accuser John Calvin gets about 68,100,000 results. Yes, the Calvin who made Calvinism. The one who wrote this about his conversion: "God by a sudden conversion subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame, which was more hardened in such matters than might have been expected from one at my early period of life. Having thus received some taste and knowledge of true godliness, I was immediately inflamed with so intense a desire to make progress therein, that although I did not altogether leave off other studies, yet I pursued them with less ardour."

Odd that "true godliness "could include burning people at the stake

In Hungary, King John Sigismund proclaimed the Edict of Torda (a city in Hungary) in 1568. This is also called the Patent of Toleration, !lOur Royal Majesty. as he had decided at the previous debates within his country about matters of religion, confirms as well at the present Diet (a Diet is a high level meeting) that every orator shall preach the gospel by his own (personal) conception, at any place if that community is willing to accept him. or if it isn't no one should force him just because their soul is not satisfied with him; but a community can keep such a preacher whose teachings are delightful. And no one, neither superintendents nor others. may hurt a preacher by this or by the previous constitutions; no one may be blamed because of their religion. No one is allowed to threaten others with prison or divest anyone of their office because of their profession: because faith is God's gift born from hearing and this hearing is conceived by the word of God."

By 1571, Unitarianism was given legal recognition in what would turn out to be King John Sigismund's last public act. He died two months later as a result of an accident, and left no heir to the throne. Francis David the man behind the Patent of Toleration began to preach his ideas from the pulpit. A man named Biandrata, concerned for the survival of the Unitarian Church, reported Francis David's activities to the successor of King Sigismund.

David continued to preach after the Prince ordered him to stop, and Francis David was arrested and tried for the crime of "religious innovation" That is:Any change in religious practice, organization, or belief. Islam and Christianity have developed orthodox bodies of belief, custom, and practice, which are regarded as part of a sacred tradition. Religious innovation is thus seen as a departure from orthodoxy, because it is a threat to tradition. Since some religious innovation is inevitable, there is a permanent tension between belief in the unchanging nature of orthodox tradition, and the actual social change of religious organizations ..

Francis David was found guilty of innovation and condemned to prison for the remainder of his life. Francis David's last words were: Neither the sword of popes. nor the cross. nor the image of death -nothing will halt the march of truth. I wrote what I felt and that is what I preached with trusting spirit. I am convinced that after my destruction the teachings of false prophets will collapse. This message was carved onto the walls of his dungeon cell. David died in the royal dungeon in the castle at Deva on November 15, 1579

Thus the Unitarian religion in modern day Transylvania was almost frozen in time. By not allowing innovation for fear of reprisal they are far more traditional than their American brethren. But Unitarian nonetheless.

"THE FATHER 01'' ENGUSH UNITARIANISM": REMEMBf!:RL".:G JOHN BlDDLE Clifford M. Rud, minister

lpswkh llnitaritrn Meeting Hm1se, 23"' Stptembet 11112

In our J>ervicc toilay we cmnmemoratc a man who died as a mart)~' 350 years on 22"" September !662. He has been called, "the flnher of English Unitarianism'', But let me quote from the obituary nf an lpswieh-oom ''citizen of London" named Thmnas Fhmin. He died, "in the 66"' year of hi$ age." on20"' December 1697.

Firmin had 10 tondcm as an apprentice, but subsequently became a man of great wt'alih, nott'd for generosity to those in need, for hi~ phil!IIJ!hropy and for the libeml spirit that charncteri~ed his fulth. Fim1in. too, was a Unitarian at 11 time \\ilt.'tl no organised Unitarian church or denominalioo existed, or oould have existed, in England. With others of like mind,. Thomas Fim1in published a series of tracts or pamphlets advocating a Unitarian theology, and seeking to l:llllkc Unitarian belief.~ acccp!ablc within the Church of England- nf which Firmin and the re$t of the gronp remained members. But Firmin was not the originator of !his 17"'­century brand Qf Unitarian beliel:~. He looked t~o> a man called J4>hn Biddle (or Bidle) as his $J1iritual and theological mentor,

Firmin was only lhirty years old when Biddle died. but h~ remained fruthful to Biddle's example for the r~'lit of his life, seeking always to practice his fiiith with practical liberality that matched his liberal theology, So let me tum to Thuma~ Firmin's obimazy and quote this extract:

''Mr. Bftfle persuaded him that the Unity q,fGod lt a Unity of Penon as well as q[Nature, "

This. of course, is classic Unitarian theology: the position that g-ave Unitarianism its name. For Biddle. Firmin, and others in the little wonp who with them to the Bible

•••••'-•••••••••••••••••••• "'..,..,l ~w•·"'·-•t,_~,.. ~ ..... n••~"''"""~'~':."" -""'-~~~-.. !," ..... '~;;. . .,..;, /'"'~,.J .~., "'<

The world that John Biddle was born into on the fourteenth of January 1615, had burned Giordano Bruno 15 years earlier (as we saw in the Call to Worship), but Biddle would leave it changed." The father of English Unitarianism " had concluded the Trinity was not supported by the Bible, and set about publishing his own views on the nature of God. John Biddle was in and out of prison till 1655 when he was exiled to the Scilly Isles. Yes, he was only exiled for his views --not burned at the stake. Although he was pardoned in 1658 John Biddle was again put in prison where he became ill and died. Samuel Clarke, Rector of St James' Piccadilly, came under severe censure when his book, The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, appeared in 1712 in which he argued that supreme honour should be given only to God, the Father.

Unitarianism did not become legal until 1813. In 1825 three groups amalgamated into the British and Foreign Unitarian Association. A century later, this joined with the Sunday School Association to become the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, which remains today the umbrella organization for British Unitarianism.

This European religious history was a forerunner to round out our Unitarian Universalist heritage, and now I turn to the United States to finish. I realize I have neglected Joseph Priestley, Thomas Jefferson, and a host of other famous Unitarians and Universalists, but in the interest of time, I will leave them for another day, or perhaps you could fill that gap.

1 n 1830, First Unitarian Church in Louisville was founded as an outpost to the West. In 1865, fresh from the horrors of the Civil War, a rationalistic minority of people formed the Free Religious Association, "to encourage the scientific study of theology and to increase fellowship in the spirit." 21 years later the Western Unitarian Conference accepted the same position, after much painful discussion and based its "fellowship on no dogmatic tests, but affirmed a desire "to establish truth. righteousness and love in the world.~~ In addition, the Western Unitarian Conference claimed belief in God was not a necessary component of Unitarian belief. The conseNatives among the conference resigned and formed the Western Unitarian Association. Missionary work in the West was badly crippled.

Eight years later, the national conference at Saratoga, New York in 1894, a compromise was reached. They affirmed by a nearly unanimous vote that: "These churches accept the religion of Jesus, holding, in accordance with his teaching, that practical religion is summed up in love to God and love to man. The conference recognizes the fact that its constituency is Congregational in tradition and polity. Therefore it declares that nothing in this constitution is to be construed as an authoritative test; and we cordially invite to our working fellowship any who, while differing from us in belief, are in general sympathy with our spirit and our practical aims."

covenant to affirm and nrnrnntP.

• The inherent worth and dignity of every person;

• Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;

• Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth In our congregations;

• A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;

• The nght of conscience and the use ofthe democratic process wlthln our congregations and in society at large;

• The goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all;

• Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we area part

It is a compromise that is with us to this day though muted. Our Principles and Purposes still tell a tale of compromise and tolerance for everyone's beliefs.

We have our Principles which we emphasize but we still have our Purposes and hopefully we always will.

We have our children's version of the Principles for ease of use and to state our cause in easy to remember short sentences, and it is easy to forget the long path it took to get to where we are today.

Perhaps remembering can get us to that place where The life of the denomination has been healthy. and its progress in strength. though not rapid, has been steady. Many new churches have been planted in the far West and in the South, as well as on the eastern seaboard: an important missionary enterprise in Japan was undertaken in 1889. and more efficient organization of forces has been steadily won.

The forming of the Young People's Religious Union in 1896 was the beginning of a movement of great and increasing importance; and in 1919 the Laymen's League took its place beside the Woman's Alliance and brought undreamed of vigor into the life of the churches. The organization of the International Congress of Free Christians and Other Religious Liberals in 1900, and of the National Federation of Religious Liberals in 1908, have brought the denomination into active sympathy with kindred movements in other lands and other churches.

"Our Unitarian Heritage," Earl Morse Wilbur 1925

In closing on the hundredth anniversary of the conception of the American Unitarian Association I leave another time gap to be filled by another. So what is the point of all this? 1•m sure you have heard it at least 1 00 times, those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it, or if you don•t know where you have been, you don•t know where you are going, or my favorite-- Tradition is hallowed, revered, and sanctified -and prevents you from doing something better. -