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A POST-CHRISTIAN CHRISTIAN FAITH

by the Reverend Henry Simoni-Wastila
at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore
on the 17th of February 2002

Sometimes the thought crosses my mind that if there is no God, if there really is no God, we have lost smething of great beauty and of great meaning for our lives. If there is no God, there are, I think, several unpleasant consequences. This does not prove that God exists, of course, but it shows us something about our religious traditions.

If there really is no Divine Being, then all the major Western religionsJudaism, Christianity,and Islamare fundamentally wrong in most of their essential teachings. If God does not exist, then the great wisdom traditions of the West,with their ancient texts and the men and women who wrote them on clay, papyrus, paper, and computer screen over the past 3,000 years are not only leading us in the wrong direction, but are completely erroneous in their central point. In like manner, almost all the primal religions throughout the world would have to change their vocabulary. Native Americans, for example, would not want to be embarrassed talking about the Great Spirit. A core aspect, the core aspect, is missing. There is loss.

In a John Updike novel, the protagonist visits his niece, a single parent, living in what is to him a squalid apartment in a run-down area and listening to inanely superficial music. It's a sad situation, creating an angst that makes us feel in our intestines that parenthood and childhood should shine more divinely. And so with our spiritual lives, the protagonist speaks of a "longing for God." There is a contrast between reality and hope. The feeling of emptiness makes us ponder a belief that would shine more brightly. Naturally, this longing is not conclusive. If there is no God, many of us perhaps feel at times a certain sense of lossand so it is asked in the novel: "Why do we feel such loss, but that there was Something to lose?"

If there is no God, however, some Buddhists might be able to say: "told you so." Some Daoists and Confucians too might be able to say: "we believe in something, but not that God whom, we all now know, does not exist." However, the Western world would not be lonely for Hindus of all types also would be at a loss because they believe in God, in Brahman that is, and in Brahman as seen through many Gods, 330 million of them. So, they're a lot worse off than the West with its belief in one or at most three Gods.

As a footnote, Adlai Stevenson, who many years ago ran for president and was himself a Unitarian, said sarcastically, "Unitarians are people who believe in at most one God." I think this wry comment is perceptive, because usually people in the West believe in at least one God. But Unitarian Universalists are highly suspicious of supernumerary spirits and disbelieving of extra deities. So there you have itUU's believe in at most one God.

Of course, none of this means we should believe in God just because so many others have; they might all have been fundamentally mistaken. What makes us want to ask whether there is a God or not? Why do I constantly mull this question over in my mind? Can't Unitarian Universalists have a religion of acceptance instead of suspicion? Why can't I just believe in God as I might believe that there is a beautiful flower on a mountain ridge? Why can't we be theistic? Why must we live with the potential of such loss? On the other hand, for manyand even for a part of myselfthe lack of theistic belief is not always experienced as a loss.

For some, there is a feeling of loss. For others there is not. In Rabbi Harold Kushner's story of the sky maiden, we have an analogy for how the same thing can be perceived differently. What is an empty box for that sneaky, curious husband is sky and all things wonderful for the maiden. When we apply this analogy to our spiritual life, we see one person share what is most preciousfor example, a belief in the Divine, a Highest Being, a Creator of this world of such richness and diversity. Yet for another person, there is nothing where that God is thought to be. There is just emptiness. The universe just exists sans Creator.

And it goes the other way. The humanist brings a box too, a box full of compassion, knowledge, andvalues. To the theist, this humanistic box seems empty too. Yet, there is healing as well, for we develop a larger world view. What one sees as emptiness is the love-of-a-life of another. And this also can help us see within ourselves, for we can have many boxes of belief. We sometimes feel emptiness and a fullness in our spiritual life.

It would seem to be easier to just believe. Why can't we just be theistic? Why can't we? Because we are post-Christians, that's why! At least most Unitarian Universalists think of themselves as such. Yes, there are Christians who are also Unitarian Universalists, but most of them have a Christian faith that is a greatly modified form of the Christian religion. When I speak of post-Christianity, I am not saying that there is nothing in the Christian tradition that is valuable. Rather, being post-Christian simply refers to an age or a movement that finds itself following an age of Christian belief, an age that is, in general, no longer illumined by a single faith, or any faith at all. The presumption of faith is no longer sustainable.

In our day, even many Christians, especially mainline Protestants, in their heart of hearts also question the validity of Christian claims to be the revealed and authoritative truth. But tradition gently shepherds many Christians back into a workable or at least an unobtrusive faith. Others, afraid to question veritable tradition, repress their inward doubts: best not to look too far into the realm of doubt, for there, there is only darkness and sin.

In face of this, an orthodox believer might say: Put your faith on by your bootstraps. Take a leap of faith. Turn away from doubt and put your effort into winning other souls to your unquestioned and certain faith. Yet doesn't everyone doubt?

There was a time when I was actively involved with Protestant and Catholic Christians. It was during college at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, which had a partially well-deserved reputation for being a "party school." In fact, in Massachusetts, UMASS was called Zoo-Mass. But it was a large school with a great richness of student groups: the healthy-crunchy food co-op, the sky-diving and mountain-climbing clubs, and a variety of religious groups. I socialized with many students who were active in these Protestant as well as Catholic groups. They were nice, caring people and good students. In fact, I still keep in touch with one of them who is, difficult as it is for me to believe, a Roman Catholic priest.

Back in those days, I believed in Jesus Christ. Yet, among my friends, I was the only one who was a religious studies major, so I suppose I was beginning to develop questions about our religious traditions. I began to be known as "Henry the Heretic." Yet I really did believe in Jesus and have changed so much since then that I have to ask myself: What is the point, what is really true about religion? Can I trust my own intuitions? And I think that many Unitarian Universalists also ask these questions. The problem is that the answers are very hard to find. As people interested in religion and spirituality, most of us feel this topic is of great importance to our lives. It's okay to admit it. Religion has a real impact on our values and how we understand our existence. Religion is not a four letter word. In fact, it's got eight letters, which might lead some UU's to think religion is twice as bad as anything a four letter word stands for.

For Unitarian Universalists and many others, doubt has crept in everywhere, and it can no longer be repressed or suppressed by the Church's temporal power. We cannot believe, no, not with that unquestioning belief of the Christendom of yore. Science and Renaissance humanism have taught us to think, to question, to pursue the truth unreservedly. We dare not leap over chasms which have not been carefully bridged and engineered by reason, proof and deduction. So loath are we to follow our hearts instead of our minds, it's a miracle such rationalists can still fall in love. We shall only go as far as the tracks of measured rationality take us.

Yet, even as post-Renaissance, post-Enlightenment humanists, we can believe just as much as we can believe in a beautiful, gentle flower, yellow with auburn edges and purple stamens on a mountain ridge.

For we post-Christians, who have rightly seen, I think, that Christianity does not hold the absolute and unique truth, faith has become problematical. We've gotten rid of the dogma, but where is the heart's natural piety? If Christianity is wrong, then what of God? Perhaps belief in God is also a relic of a superstitious, gullible age. Just as the ancient wisdom traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are wrong in their astronomy, perhaps they are wrong in their theology. A caveat: Maybe throwing out God would be losing Something special. How can we deal with the loss attendent upon finding the empty box?

Is there such a thing as a post-Christian faith? Something does shine through the haze of natural science, metaphysics and philosophy. There are moments of religious experience, of epiphany. I am, at rare and beautiful moments, grasped by a sense of perfection, of inner peace and contentment, of joy. Yes, it is here even in a post-Christian age. It is ultimately nameless; we call it God, or Love, or Spirit or truth.

We can believe in Love itself as we might believe in a beautiful, gentle flower, yellow with auburn edges and purple stamens on a mountain ridge dancing in the rising wind like King David enraptured before the altar of Yahweh-Elohim.

Should not there be a God if we want there to be? That is an illogical question. But something is missing if there is no God, for I want there to be, and my heart was made for Divinity and shall not rest in peace till it rest in Thee. Maybe, yes. Maybe, no.

Wishing does not create being. Our wishes for money, health, or love are often unrequited. If our deepest wish, our deep urge for something of infinite value, goodness and joy is unattainableif there is no God, then life becomes tinged with unpleasantness. This unpleasantness is a feeling of emptiness: "Why do we feel such loss, but that there was Something to lose?"

Yet this feeling of loss at the empty box can be lessened by feeling it with creative love. Perhaps we should abandon the wish for an otherworldly recompense and pick up our daily mortal lives by the bootstraps and walk into nature's chill, taking no leaps of faith. Is this our message? Should we have a sign on Unitarian Universalist chapel doors reading: Abandon all hope ye who enter here? I think, all things being equal, we should believe our dreams and face our fears rather than drowning hope in tears. Perhaps the box is full of the Transcendent. Perhaps it is full of compassion.

In order to help me end this long, pedantic sermon, I must enlist the aid of an able Rabbi. In his book Who Needs God, Harold Kushner states the belief that: "There is a kind of nourishment our souls crave, even as our bodies need the right foods, sunshine and exercise." We might say that the soul, like the body, needs a source of light and being. Kushner's thesis is that only God can satisfy our human needs. At some point in my slow descent from a strong theism to "reverent agnosticism," I have reached the point where I disagree with the Rabbi. I disagree, at least I think I do, because I do not want to say we have a religious need for which we have such strong doubts about the existence of that Being which would satisfy that need. We might even quibble further with Rabbi Kushner that, even if there exists a source of light and being, even if God does exist, we may still experience our life as a life of spiritual need. Yet, perhaps I agree in that I feel a need for Divinity. So it is offered for our consideration the hypothesis, the possibility that even in our post-Christian age, there may be a God. There may be a Love that transcends the limits we usually apply to love.

For the mystic soul, in its deepest hope, in moments of insight, there is a flower on a mountain ridge. It is beautiful, and its outstretched limbs and laureled head dance in the wind ecstatically like an ancient poet or prophet. Who am I to say it is not so, for I see its yellow petals tinged with auburn and stamens painted purple and hear its song wing across the valleya bridge for enraptured souls. Blessed be. Blessed be.