Lessons of History
SERMON GIVEN BY REV LINDA HART AT RICHMOND & PUTNEY UNITARIAN CHURCH
It likely won’t come as a surprise to you that I’m not the one in our family who loves history. As long as we have known each other, Peter is the one who consistently picks up books on history and reads them through and then can recite figures and dates and names back to me. I’m lucky to remember the name of the book once I’ve read it, much less those sorts of details. I’ve always been a bit of a big-picture sort of person, and the details of history always made my head hurt. Peter was always tolerant of this defect in me, always willing to fill me in on something that I needed for a reference in a sermon or some help with a matter that involved things like dates or names or figures.
So, imagine his surprise when I was preparing for a trip to Transylvania with members of the church I served in Spokane, Washington, and more importantly, preparing a sermon to preach about the connections there were between Unitarians in Transylvania and Unitarians in the United States – imagine his surprise when I kept coming out of the study, with a dry tome of history in my hand exclaiming that I had something I simply had to share with him because it was so interesting, or so moving, or so amazing. ‘Listen,’ I’d say, peering into my book and finding the relevant passage, ‘can you believe this?’ He would listen patiently, smiling gently, pleased that I’d finally caught on.
It didn’t last too long, and soon enough, I was back to my old self, coming to him to answer questions about historical things that I didn’t understand.
Before we arrived here in Richmond, I gave it another go to read some of the history of British Unitarians, and found it slow going. Page after page of details and figures and dates. It was good reading when I couldn’t fall asleep, for it would knock me out in no time. But it has gotten turned around again for me. One part of it is simply being here, and wishing to know how it is that we got here, to this place in the world, this kind of church and what it means to be this kind of church.
And particularly, I’ve been interested in uncovering for myself what the threads of the past that weave into our present and show us some of the way toward the future. What are those? What might they do for us?
I found my interest piqued when at our autumn conference the ministers talked about the ways in which we might support each other, and then among the London ministers we began to work on a covenant we might make with each other. That is, in both the national organisation and in our more local organisation of ministers, we have begun a conversation about creating statements of what binds us to each other in professional association, as well as the promises that we would make to each other about how we work together. As this is something that is well established in the US, I was surprised that there wasn’t such a document here that had been created and maintained by the Ministerial Fellowship.
And in both of the rather lengthy conversations that took place this autumn, the matter of being ‘dissenting’ and ‘non-subscribing’ arose. A few said that they were leery of anything that would require them to sign on to it, given our history. Some balked at any sort of unifying document that might be produced. It had the sound of being required to assent to a creed, one of the issues around which our religious movement had been shaped, that is, around the requirement that ministers accept articles of faith, and in particular certain creeds.
I was surprised and drawn in. What was this about? Knowing the American history of Unitarianism – it came from a schism in the established churches in New England all of which were non-creedal – I hadn’t had to contend with the dynamics that arose from the requirements of creeds and articles of faith. Finally, this week I hauled out my copy of the definitive history of Unitarianism, and began to read. Suddenly it wasn’t just dates and figures and details: it was the story of how it was that we – all of us here, in fact – arrived at this particular place, going back a couple of centuries. I began to meet my ancestors, those who had trodden this path before I arrived and who laid the groundwork for me to be here today, in this glorious building, surrounded by this company of friends and companions. And while I didn’t go running to Peter with the details and the anecdotes, I will be eventually retelling him of what I’ve learned, if only to feed his historical hunger, and to reciprocate some of the help that he’s given to me over the years.
As I leafed through the book the first time, looking over the chapters that addressed English Unitarianism, the word ‘dissenter’ came up in nearly every chapter heading. Reading along about the various movements that preceded and fed into the creation of Unitarians in England, I was struck by the argumentative mood that penetrated it all. Each story told of one person or another seemed to be about the disputes they had with one or another requirement of the Church of England, as the books and pamphlets flew back and forth laying out finely argued points largely about the trinity, and the nature of Jesus. As always seems to be the case when I do get captured by history, it is the individual lives that speak most clearly and deeply to me.
John Biddle, for example, he who was faced with disputations during his Sunday gatherings, had authored a series of books that questioned on Scriptural grounds the doctrine of the trinity. It sounds a mild enough sort of thing to do, but given that in 1648 a law had been passed in Parliament that sought to silence any debate or discussion about such issues. Entitled ‘An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament, for the punishing of Blasphemies and Heresies’, this act was also called the ‘Draconian Ordinance’ Wilbur reports that
it provides with great particularity that ‘all persons that willingly, by preaching, teaching, printing or writing, maintain and publish that the Father is not God, the Son is not God, or that the Holy Ghost is not God, or that they three are not one eternal God, or that Christ is not God equal with the Father [besides seven other named heresies], shall be adjudged guilty of a felony; and in case the party upon his trial shall not adjure his said error he shall suffer the pains of death, without benefit of clergy.’
The law was never enacted as controversy arose about it and other political forces came to bear quickly enough that it remained a dead letter. Still this may give you a flavour of the times and that matters of belief were indeed matters life and death.
Biddle indeed took his life into his own hands as he found that he could discover no place in scriptures nor in reason where the trinity could be found. He had privately questions the doctrine, and was eventually called before the magistrates to be tried for heresy. Producing a confession of faith which was acceptable to them, he was released, but his conscience didn’t rest easy and he produced a tract entitled XII Arguments, which refuted all the traditional understandings of the Godhead of the Holy Spirit. Intended only for the use of his friends, one betrayed him and again – this time ill of a fever – he was called before the Magistrates. And here’s where I find him wonderfully bold. In the face of the Magistrates who could imprison him, he stated plainly his denial of the accepted doctrine, and – and this is the truly bold – asked that he be allowed to discuss the matter with some competent theologian. And this eventually led to one of his many confinements.
It seems that each time he was allowed out of custody he produced new heretical writings. And responses were made to him. In 1648, one was produced by the Reverend Nicolas Estwick, entitled Pneumatologia: or, A Treatise of the Holy Ghost, in which the Godhead of the third Person of the Trinitie is. . . defended against the Sophisticall subtleties of John Bidle. Others included Blasphemoktonia: the Holy Ghost vindicated and Blasphemoktonia: The Blasphemer Slain; or a Plea for the Godhood of the Holy Ghost, vindicated from the cavils of J. Bidle.
The lists of his writings and the responses are a clear record of the dissenting tradition, and the non-subscribing tradition that fed into our present day movement. Unable to attest to beliefs that seemed unreasonable and unsound, Biddle and his companions of the time risked health and even life by proclaiming the truth as they best saw it. If we were not careful, we would miss the equally important facet of our history. Later in life, Biddle produced a series of smaller writings in which he translated works by some of the Polish freethinkers – the Socinians, followers of Faustus Socinus. Wilbur comments:
These little writings taken together were designed to soften religious prejudice, and to recommend that Christians should decide all questions in dispute by Scripture interpreted by reason rather than by reference to creeds or traditions, and to advocate mutual toleration.
In a time of religious intolerance and dogmatism – not unlike some facets of our present day – Biddle risked his life to call people into mutual respect, asked them to engage in discourse with each other, using the gift of their reason to come to know what is most profoundly true, to understand the nature of the God who has created the universe, who has breathed life into humanity, and who will eventually gather us in when we come to our final rest. In all the disputations and finely argued points of disagreement, the underlying intent and hope was that a true faith, a true relationship with God could be forged that was open and unsullied by the accumulated silt of tradition.
Because no matter the strength of his mind and the keenness of his intellect, what mattered most was attaining a life that was worth living. Again, I’ll quote Wilbur:
In what has been said of Biddle, we have been mostly concerned with his writings and his sufferings as a reformer of Christian doctrines; but his earliest biographer judged that his greatest merit lay not in his efforts to spread his views of religious truth, but in his zeal for promoting holiness of life and manners, which was always his final aim in teaching. For he used to tell his friends that no religion would benefit a bad man; and he had little interest in doctrines as such apart from a reverent, godly life to which they contributed.
What mattered to Biddle wasn’t ascription to particular ideas but with the quality of life that they might encourage and uphold. How radical he was nearly four centuries ago. What a gift he gives to us in our current time:
the power and fire of reason that helps us to clear away the cobwebs, to centre in on what is most true;
the longings to understand most clearly to what – to whom – we ultimately belong;
and the necessity of a life that touches on holiness in the ways we live.
As I have mentioned, John Biddle was not a Unitarian as we understand that term, but one of the forebears who laid the groundwork for those who would be later called Unitarians. Without a doubt he is our ancestor in his longings and hope, and in the work of his life he can be an inspiration to us.
He has captured me. His life of passion and commitment is startling to me. I suppose that I’m learning again, at least for a few moments, the value of looking backwards into our history to find treasures that tell us who we are and from whence we have come. Even if not related by birth and blood, still these ancestors tell an important part of our story. Over the ages, as Wilbur acknowledges in his closing paragraph about the English Unitarians, they have given of themselves, have changed men and women, have changed the world, have touched vast numbers with the work of their hearts and hands.
There are times that I worry about the legacy that we have inherited in its contentiousness and staunch individuality. As dissenters and non-subscribers, we have in our religious DNA that argumentative strain, and when we set our hearts to that thread, we can wind up with disputes like that in the village, some standing, some sitting, all arguing and not noticing that they’ve missed the prayer, missed that moment to touch the divine, to be inspired into deeper and more true living.
So let us take this subtler thread of our history, the one that in the time of religious dogmatism and fundamentalism – then and now – that can easily kill the spirit if not the body, let us lift up that thread of toleration, of reason, and engagement in the world. And let us always remember that there is no religion that will do any of us any bit of good in this world that doesn’t lead us into a life that is well grounded in the most profound reality there can be, it won’t do us any bit of good if it doesn’t call us into a holiness of manners, infusing our days with purpose and grace, leading us ever more into kindness and compassion, into love for ourselves, each other, and for this wide, green earth that we walk.