Movement 1:
Three years ago I had the privilege of attending General Assembly when it was held in Long Beach, California. On the last day, just as we were preparing to leave, I visited my favorite coffee shop one last time. Being the shy person that I am, I struck up a conversation with these two nice gentlemen sitting next to me. They asked me what convention was going on. So I whipped out my elevator speech and start explaining Unitarian Universalism.

Now have you ever had that experience when you are telling someone about being a UU and they start looking at you weird like somehow you are dangerous and very suspect? The look on their faces communicated clearly, “Oh, you’re one of those. And the next thought I saw pass over their faces was, “wow, if we could ‘save’ her we would really earn some major brownie points with God.” All of their programming and coaching kicked in and they started with the tactic of asking me more about Unitarian Universalism. Well, I’m not quite as stupid as I look and I saw through what was happening, but I was feeling inspired by GA and I was up for a little entertainment.

It didn’t take long before this turned into a pleasant and respectful sparring match. Come to find out, one of the men was a minister of a well-known black congregation in town so he was very adept at quoting the bible and talking theology. I love a good challenge, especially when I have to articulate what I believe and why I believe it. Now for many years I tried and tried to be a traditional, mainstream Christian. I really did, but it just never fit. However my Christian path is the oldest root of my religious beliefs. So I popped in my Christian language software and started talking.

Their particular flavor of Christianity focused on being a good person with the goal of getting into heaven. I told them that in my opinion, every moment we are alive is heaven if we choose to recognize it as such and it seems like a waste of life to me to live only with the intention of good times in the afterlife. I honestly don’t believe Christ taught the message to love our neighbors as ourselves, love our enemies, and love God with all our being, because of what it would get us after we died. Jesus’ message, as I read it, calls us to love ourselves and everyone else out of the goodness of our hearts, because living from that goodness is the very experience of heaven in each moment. And that experience changes us into better people. That’s as good as it gets!

I really question if it is genuine caring from one’s heart, if their primary motivation is to get some kind of reward. That is all about getting a reward not about caring for another person. This can’t be what Christ was teaching when he said to give to others but don’t expect praise. Don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. Caring for others with no thought of reward is much more likely to be motivated by genuine compassion.

The look of shock on their faces as I explained these things was rather entertaining but didn’t last very long and my interpretations didn’t go very far with these gentlemen. At times they looked like they felt sorry for me and I made them work ever so hard to try and convince me. But they were always kind and respectful, (and maybe a tiny bit annoyed). I felt deep and authentic warmth from both of them. Even though I questioned the motivation they had for how they lived their lives, I had great respect for the kindness they were demonstrating. We all knew we would never agree, but we enjoyed our coffee shop encounter just the same.

Now I realize this encounter with evangelical Christians was much more pleasant than most because it was also just a coffee shop chat. We had no reason to be overly serious. Most encounters are often much more intense. I suspect that reading from Dr. Carrigan’s website, funny as it may be, might have triggered a lot of old memories and possibly pain and hurt for many of us who used to attend Christian churches. Shocking as it is, it is an important reality check for us to acknowledge how others see the world and how they see us. You might be familiar with the wildly popular Christian novels, the Left Behind series. In these books, Unitarian Universalists are personified as the helplessly lost, never to be redeemed people. As you probably can guess, we are doomed and condemned to hell. This attitude is the standard among the religious right.

There were many other websites I could have used that were much more caustic and full of condemnation about us UU’s. (If you want, you can check these out by googling converting Unitarian Universalists.) We cause them great concern because they have no choice but condemn us as immoral once we have rejected their belief system. I don’t think they see us as human beings the same as they are anymore. They see us as different, dangerous, highly suspect, and even evil.

Another travesty is when we allow the religious right to define Christianity for us. Clearly Christianity has timeless wisdom that we can glean from its ancient perspectives if we are not overly invested in rejecting it because of the way the religious right has defined it. By the way, this is true for all of our many faith traditions.

So we are left with a state where they feel sorry for us and are afraid of us because they think we are hopelessly lost and confused. And we feel sorry for them and are afraid of them because we think they are hopelessly lost and confused. True as this may be, it is important to remember none of us truly live the life of a stereotype. We are all changing, evolving human beings.

Movement 2:
We are quite clear that we do not believe the same world-view as the religious right. But what do we believe? One of our greatest, time-honored ideals as UU’s is to have the freedom to choose what we each think and believe for ourselves. Now let’s be honest with ourselves for a moment; how clear are our beliefs? It would be fun to do an in depth study of spiritual beliefs and practices within our congregation (we do love numbers!), but I have observed that some of us have clearly defined beliefs; others of us have multiple working theories and still others are not willing to say at all. And many of us define our beliefs by what we reject and don’t believe! No worries. This isn’t that uncommon. What matters is whether or not we are actively on that discernment path of seeking; always growing, learning and changing.

Knowing where we stand helps us to have meaningful dialogue because we don’t need to feel threatened or defensive and we can explain ourselves and as we compare and contrast our beliefs with others. If we are open-minded and learning and growing, then our beliefs may be working theories because we continue to test them out. Even if this is the case, at least we know where we stand even if it is temporary. More importantly, being clear about our beliefs is also what guides our lives. There may be many beliefs you aren’t really sure about, but I bet there are many others you would never give up. For example, I’ll bet, whether you are atheist, humanist, pagan, Christian, Buddhist, or a conglomeration of bits and pieces, love and compassion are key elements to living a good life. Caring for others and making a difference in the world either individually, locally or globally motivates many of you, and it is so inspiring to see!

As we define our beliefs we are faced with the choice of either living by them or ignoring them in our daily life. This is when it helps to have one’s own spiritual practice. Our faith doesn’t tell us what to believe or how to practice what we believe. We as individuals have the responsibility of making this happen for ourselves. A spiritual practice, either self-created or borrowed, centers us in our beliefs and keeps us focused on how we are choosing to live everyday.

It is worth the effort to sort this out. When we choose to speak and act out of our own sense of beliefs and we have a spiritual practice that supports those beliefs, a ring of authenticity comes through to all those around us. What we say holds much more weight because of how we act and feel. The most authentic form of evangelizing is to just speak the truth from the heart and let the chips fall where they may. Our actions speak much, much louder than our words.

Sometimes I have observed UU’s (and others for that matter) yelling with great anger and contempt about an issue they felt passionate about. They were making great arguments with their words but it had no meaning because their actions and tone of voice nullified what they were saying. Is does not make sense to prove ourselves right with our words at the expense of living our ideals. You cannot prove your words if you cannot demonstrate them by how you act. When the two are incongruent then it is time to pay attention and get busy changing.

Movement 3:
So what to do with this religious right? They do pose a challenge for us. As liberals we want to be supportive and helpful. I think many of us just want to live and let live. But the truth is, they attack us and what we stand for. We all know the religious right is doing everything it can to impose its agenda on the government. Their success has managed to erode many of our civil rights. We also see they have defined Christianity for much of the world. My liberal Christian friends find this quite offensive because they interpret Christian teaching much, much differently but the liberal Christian message is not the one that often gets out to the mainstream world.

Is there ever a time when we really should not tolerate the evangelizing message of the religious right? You betcha! We make the mistake of being too tolerant and accepting for too long. We tend to stay silent in tacit agreement when it is time to speak up for where we stand.

And what about our children? Have any of you read A Purpose Driven Life? It has been a blockbuster bestseller for many years now. Rick Warren, the author, teaches step by step what a conservative Christian should believe. He does this in small, bite sized, easy understood phrases that are simple to program and internalize into one’s being. They are also programming these simple phrases into their children and send them out into the world to ‘save’ our children. Their kids don’t even understand what they are talking about, but they are telling our kids that they will go to hell if they are not saved by the blood of Jesus. Our kids don’t understand any of this but it sure sounds scary! This is terrorizing our children and undermining our faith!

Oi! This makes me really angry! It makes me want to act in ways that are incongruent with my beliefs! But there are ways we can address these parents; reminding them that we live in a free society and we are fortunately free to choose our own religion and these teachings are not welcome, they terrorize, frighten and confuse our children, and this behavior is unacceptable. However, if we can avoid acting completely out of anger, this is a great opportunity to try and have a healthy dialogue about our differing faiths and how each faith may be honored without imposing either on each other.

For the children, we can see this as a great learning opportunity to discover the laws of our land concerning freedom of religion and celebrating our diverse world of beliefs. We can teach all of them how wonderful it is to respect these differing beliefs.

When we can speak with understanding and kindness, as we stand up for ourselves and our children, then we command respect and possibly gain trust. Respect and trust are the beginnings of an honest dialogue. You never know when someone would welcome an honest conversation about these things. Maybe they have doubts or are tired of not having the freedom to think for themselves. Yes, this is our opportunity to evangelize.

When people are ready, our Unitarian Universalist message is quite refreshing! We are able to speak to the oppressed and give them hope for a new life. That sounds Christian doesn’t it?! But really, we all know the oppressive pressures these people and others are living under. They have unreasonable demands from their faith that they just can’t possibly meet. People that are gay, lesbian, bi, or transgender are often driven to suicide because they can’t reconcile their feelings and experience with their religion and their family. Our message of hope can and does save lives, not in preparation for some afterlife, but right here and now!

The religious right is beginning to implode because people are tired of the lies. So let’s wrap ourselves in the waving of this vibrant bold faith community knowing that we are support as we speak up and take a stand against oppression. Share our UU message of hope. Speak the truth from your heart and do it in a way that invites healing. The world needs us to continue providing a nurturing home for those who are changing.

Evangelizing happens in every moment you choose to live guided by what you believe. Make it so!

Amen

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