“Let Us Begin Again in Love” (moral, punishment, Earth, salvation)

[Green Gaia]

Link: Pastoral Letter from the Rev. William G. Sinkford
President, Unitarian Universalist Association

“Let Us Begin Again in Love”

Dear Friends,

I write to you as we approach Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement for the Jewish people, a time when they seek forgiveness for past mistakes and commit themselves to living moral lives, striving again to have their names written in the Book of Life.

We Unitarian Universalists do not have such an annual holiday of atonement, but I have often wished that we did. I am thinking about atonement particularly during this 200th anniversary year of Hosea Ballou's A Treatise on Atonement. This theological statement of Universalism, asserting that all people are worthy of salvation and may find it if they act in accordance with what they know to be good and moral, has called generations to align themselves so that they stand on the side of love.

It is a difficult time, as our hearts and minds and media waves are filled with images of suffering, war, and human misery. And yet I believe it is at exactly such moments that we must commit ourselves, through acts of faith, to stand on the side of love.

Our nation remains at war. 140,000 US women and men occupy Iraq , with thousands more still mired in Afghanistan. American, Iraqi and Afghani citizens are dying daily, leaving loved ones bereft and wailing. Before this war began, I spoke out with many religious leaders to question its wisdom. After our government embarked on war, however, it was less clear to me what it meant to stand on the side of love, both domestically and internationally.

It is now clear to me that the time has come for a phased and scheduled withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. I have conveyed my beliefs to the White House and Congress, and our UUA advocacy staff remain active in the Win Without War coalition. I am also aware that hundreds of you visited the nation's capitol last month to stand up for your own beliefs about this war, and that one of our clergy, David Blanchard of the First UU society of Syracuse, NY, is fasting for an end to this war.

As a genocidal war rages in Sudan, I have felt compelled to speak out and to act in order to focus more U.S. attention on the atrocities occurring there. The UUA is active in the Save Darfur Coalition, and I will soon be taking a trip around the globe to Africa with Dr. Charlie Clements, President of the UU Service Committee. My forbearers and my faith call me there, to what I know will be a profound and disturbing journey.

The shame that I feel as I witness our government's involvement with torture in our detention centers and all around the globe also calls me to atonement. Many of us gathered in the nation's capital last month as part of the UUSC's Stop Torture campaign to hear torture victims and their surviving family members speak the unspeakable. It was my privilege to lead an interfaith delegation, walking with these who have been broken in body but not in spirit, to Capitol Hill so that elected officials could hear their stories. Once more, I was proud that Unitarian Universalists and our interfaith friends chose to stand on the side of love.

But we don't need to travel around the globe or meet with international visitors to see despair writ large in the faces of others. Hurricane Katrina, and the failure of our government to care for the most vulnerable in their time of deepest need, has caused pain that will endure for decades. I am pleased and proud to say that Unitarian Universalists have now contributed almost two million dollars to the UUA-UUSC Gulf Coast Relief Fund. This generosity will allow us not only to rebuild our UU congregations in the area, but will allow us to reach out, with both immediate and long-term support, to the communities of all faiths who are most in need in the wake of this tragedy.

No matter what we do, however, we may feel that our small actions are insignificant, that we do not have the skills or the time or the opportunity to choose life, to stand on the side of love. Yet even small acts may have results we cannot imagine. Your own acts for love and justice inspire me, and others, in ways you may never know. And please be gentle with yourself, allowing yourself to risk even when you know you may fail. As the Rev. Robert Eller-Isaacs, co-minister of Unity Church-Unitarian in St. Paul, Minnesota, wrote in his Kol Nidre:

For remaining silent when a single voice would have made a difference,
We begin again in love…
For each time that our greed has blinded us to the need of others,
We begin again in love…
For losing sight of our unity,
We begin again in love…

In this time of difficulty and peril, let us, over and over, begin again in love.

In faith,

The Rev. William G. Sinkford
President, Unitarian Universalist Association

[michel]

What a wonderful concept; if only it was as easy as that............

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by Maize

We Unitarian Universalists do not have such an annual holiday of atonement, but I have often wished that we did. I am thinking about atonement particularly during this 200th anniversary year of Hosea Ballou's A Treatise on Atonement. This theological statement of Universalism, asserting that all people are worthy of salvation and may find it if they act in accordance with what they know to be good and moral, has called generations to align themselves so that they stand on the side of love.

Namaste Maize,

No arguments from me about the bulk of Sinkford's message. I especially like the last part. Thank you btw for posting these for us!

Just one comment on Hosea Ballou's Treatise on Atonement. The idea that all are worthy of salvation is a good one, I believe, albeit sometimes difficult to believe in reality. My problem with Ballou is that he didn't just say that we are all worthy to be saved. He said that we are all saved, regardless of how we act on this earth. Both Hitler and Gandhi wind up in heaven, with no need for atonement on Hitler's part. Not only does this seem unfair to me, but more importantly, it violates free will. It says that no matter what choices we make, we end up in the same place as anyone else. So then, asside from the fact that we feel the need to, what is the point of standing on the side of love?

Granted that since UUs don't necessarily believe in heaven, I am not even sure what Ballou's treatise means to us anymore, except as a historical landmark.

[Green Gaia]

Originally Posted by lilithu

Just one comment on Hosea Ballou's Treatise on Atonement. The idea that all are worthy of salvation is a good one, I believe, albeit sometimes difficult to believe in reality. My problem with Ballou is that he didn't just say that we are all worthy to be saved. He said that we are all saved, regardless of how we act on this earth. Both Hitler and Gandhi wind up in heaven, with no need for atonement on Hitler's part. Not only does this seem unfair to me, but more importantly, it violates free will. It says that no matter what choices we make, we end up in the same place as anyone else. So then, asside from the fact that we feel the need to, what is the point of standing on the side of love?

True, that's a sticky point I try not to think about too much, to be honest. I don't know what happens, if anything, when we die, but I do not believe in places of reward or punishment, so that doesn't factor into how I live my life. For me the point of standing on the side of love is to make the world a little better, a little saner, a littler safer for generations to come.

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by Maize

True, that's a sticky point I try not to think about too much, to be honest. I don't know what happens, if anything, when we die, but I do not believe in places of reward or punishment, so that doesn't factor into how I live my life. For me the point of standing on the side of love is to make the world a little better, a little saner, a littler safer for generations to come.

Namaste Maize, I don't believe in literal heaven and hell either, and am totally agnostic about an afterlife. But I do think that the Universalist side of our heritage still poases a relevant challenge for us. It goes back to taking sin/evil seriously. What does it mean that all are "saved." Or to lose the salvific language, what does it mean that everyone has inherent worth and dignity? Do our choices and actions have a bearing on this worth? or is it something that we can't lose no matter how much harm we do?

The danger with mixing Judaism and Christianity in UU is that Judaism is based on justice (as is Islam) and Christianity is based on love. We'd like to think those two go hand in hand but sometimes they conflict. When someone does something incredibly unjust and is unrepentant, which one wins out in our UU tradition - justice or love? Even as I type this I am thinking that they both must win, we cannot lose either of them, but I think we have yet to define how they both fit in our system. All talk of heaven asside, I feel that Ballou's treatise erred on the side of love, making it so that no matter what anyone does, everyone is still equal. What I am asking is, how do we justify this line of thinking in light of genocides and outrageous apathy?

Sinkford's closing lines, "Let us begin again in love" are beautiful, but they only work in our idealized world where everyone actually wants to begin again in love.

[michel]

Sinkford's closing lines, "Let us begin again in love" are beautiful, but they only work in our idealized world where everyone actually wants to begin again in love.

oh yes, amen to that.