This sermon was presented at Stevens Chapel on August 2, 2002 by Rev. Dr. Judith Campbell.

The God Continuum…it’s a moving sidewalk….where do you find/place yourself

Dear God, if there is a God, save my soul if I’ve got a soul…was the prayer of a Civil war soldier….who with that kind of a prayer, could easily have been an early Unitarian Universalist…….but whether he was or not, those words certainly reflect the thoughts and feelings of a good many of us around the words "god"…and "soul". Actually, I think a number of us are far more comfortable with the concept of having a soul…than we with the concept of god.

We’ve all heard the "God and Unitarian Universalist jokes. What does a Unitarian Universalist burn on someone’s front lawn….a question Mark, or, what do you get when you cross a Jehovah’s witness and a Unitarian Universalist? Some one who comes to your door and doesn’t know what to talk about. What do the initials UU really stand for?… Unquestionably Unsure! And what do you get when you cross a dyslexic with a Unitarian Universalist? A person who can’t remember the question about Dog!

So much for the jokes, the subject is a serious one for me…and a number of Unitarian Universalists who would like to be able to define…at least what it is they DON’T believe in…as perhaps a first step in getting closer to what they might believe in…someday…for a little while!

My husband Chris and I belong to an organization called the Society for Values in Higher Education. I believe Polly and Bob Friedrichs have been members for some time as well. The annual meeting consists of a number of workshops, called morning sessions, and a number of presentations by members and learned guests. One of the workshops that is presented every year is called "God Wrestling". It is co-led by a Jewish Contemporary woman theologian and an African American United Church of Christ male Minister– the discussion centers on the nature of a God they both unquestionably believe in but experience through the different lenses of their religious and cultural traditions.

What about us….For us, God wrestling might be about the nature of something which some folks refer to as God, but which most of us… 1. Would rather not think about, 2. Are convinced of the non-existence of such an entity, 3. Firmly on the fence,

4. Leaving our options open for want of further evidence, 5. Are hoping this sermon will clear some of this murk up! Well for the record, I vote for #5, I hope that this talk will clear some of this up for all of us, me included.

I often write sermons as a way to clarify my own thinking on a subject. It is said that the best way to learn about a subject is to teach it….well that was certainly true in my academic career….and now, in Ministry, I will often deliberately set myself a sermon topic so I can learn more about that topic. Hence, the God continuum. And to be honest with you over the years, I have found myself at a number of different points along that continuum, and I suspect that will continue as long as my intellect and my creative curiosity continue to be a driving force.

WE UUs started ourselves my debunking the trinity, the idea that God was Triune, Father Son and Holy spirit, all in one. We started by saying, …"nope!", God is one. That other stuff is nowhere in the bible, and was an invention of people who were trying to put the idea of God into somewhat of a more tangible framework. Early Unitarians said God is one. But the more we came to question the idea of one God…the more we questioned the idea of a God at all, and the muddied waters are still swirling.

The conundrum is, humans, from the time we have evidence of recorded history through art and artifacts, have created religious systems, which most often include a deity or a whole house and senate full of self appointed deities. (Some things don’t change!) We can ask the question, have we created these Gods and religious systems, because we need them to explain away the mysteries and the things that scare us and we don’t understand….OR…are we somehow programmed by some organizing principle greater than ourselves to seek to understand that higher principle and live by it’s dictates…OR…is life as we know it basically an evolutionary crap-shoot where there are no odds, and the game is not over!

The God Continuum as I am defining it in this sermon goes from absolutely no god, or higher organizing principle whatsoever….the crap-shoot theology, –where we are totally on our own and at the mercy of random chance, to the single father/mother god principle which…or who…is personally interested in our every move, and with whom we can communicate directly through prayer, sacrifice and from which flows divine grace. In between these two extremes there are several…hundred…variations and points of view!

I would like to present a few of the more popular ones.

A number of religious systems embrace the idea of more than one god….a nest or a hierarchy each with their own interest area and specialization. Then there is the idea that a single god set this whole cosmos and it’s evolution in motion and then stepped back and is letting us fend for ourselves….now that’s scary. There are those who find the sacred all around us, and not confined to a single thought or entity, but that everything is imbued with a sacred spirit that is purposefully un-named. And to that idea, some would add a God presence who….WHO is all around us AND within us, and that everything we do affects this Idea of God and because that god is within us, we too are affected by everything. It is a little chaos theory, in that no action is without it’s re-action or a result somewhere. Humanists, very popular stance in UUism, say that we humans have within ourselves all that is necessary to achieve our own highest aspirations and we should connect with one another to help achieve those aspirations. The faith of a humanist is the faith that that good will ultimately be achieved through the work of humans during their own lifetimes… without any outside interference. And there are those for whom God is the manifestation and incarnation of love…that one’s pretty nebulous, but it makes the indeterminate nature of the idea of god some how more within our intellectual grasp….in that love is something we can know and feel,…but can’t exactly touch.

Why are there so many view on the subjects,…. mile markers on the continuum? And ultimately, why do we care what all of these people think?

Clearly some people don’t care. There are any number of people who don’t want to labor over what they should or should not believe. Tell me what to believe, and I will, and I will not question, and I will live within that belief system …as long as it works, and even when it doesn’t seem to be working, the fault undoubtedly lies with me rather than God or the belief system, and I will try harder to conform. That view is not ours.

When a religious belief system breaks down for an individual, some people will walk away from it and all belief systems, disillusioned and angry and openly critical of all religion and those people who practice it. And, some will work within the broken down system to bring it more in "Sync" with contemporary thought and action, which is just what the "Community of the faithful" are doing within the Roman Catholic Church. Here are Catholic people who love the belief system, and abhor the transgressions within that system by individuals, and who are trying to keep what works for them and what they value, while they try to expunge …the dry rot!

So what about us?….What about you?….What are our options?…do we care?

Again, I do. Let me be more specific now and elaborate upon some of the more popular points along the continuum.

I have trouble with "text book atheism" because to insist there is ABSOLUTELY NO GOD, means at least a rudimentary acknowledgment of the thing that you are declaring does not exist. Best not engage in the discussion ….how can you have an opinion about something that does not exist for you? It is rather like asking a tribal equatorial African about packed powder versus granular for downhill skiing. There is no frame of reference….at all.

The agnostic position makes more sense to me. "Militant Agnostic, I don’t know and you don’t know either"…says the bumper sticker on my Husband’s car. Again, some people will live in perfect comfort with that stance, and some people will look deeper and explore what it is they don’t know and may in fact come full circle back to the place where they still are not sure….but at least they know what they don’t know, and what other people are thinking and asking about the subject. That stance fits a lot of Unitarian Universalists.

The Pantheist sees the divine in everything, but does not feel the need to call it by a specific name. Many indigenous religious systems seek and find the holy in everything they see, touch and earnestly try to accord it the respect it deserves.

Panentheism takes the pantheist theory and inserts a sentient God. A god who is in everything but is also apart and responds to human joy and folly. The pantheist says if we mess up the planet, we hurt the whole ecosystem including ourselves, which we think of as being sacred. The Panentheist says if we mess up the planet, we are hurting not only the ecosystem, but we are also hurting God, who in response is saddened by our folly.

Paganism could be pantheistic….. declaring the sacred is everywhere and excluding the idea of god or gods, or it could be polytheistic, that is to say there are a number of god and goddesses affecting the sacred that is everywhere, but either way, the pagan approaches the sacred through the wonder and miracle of the cycles of nature. It also doesn’t take much scratching below the surface to see the pagan foundations of many of our contemporary religious observances.

The UU Christian, definitely believes in a God with a big "G", and believes that the teachings of Jesus are the best way to find out more about this one God.

The Tao…..or the way…from ancient Chinese philosophy,suggests there is an inherent organization to all things animate and inanimate which ultimately sensible and respectful of human life and the entire interrelated cosmos. Our highest aspirations should be to try live a balanced life, which is in harmony with that principle of organization. No god is mentioned.

Personally, "god" is word I will sometimes use to explain the holy/sacred interconnectedness of all matter…the balance, the divine harmony…the beautiful way…the tao…the Buddha nature, the spirit of life, the Shakina…the sparks of the divine light here among us. I just as frequently use any and all of the others, because saddling a concept so magnificent with the banality of a fixed name for me, …….limits the scope and power of what that ultimately might be.

I am uncomfortable with strictly ordered belief systems that read like an auditors record of checks and balances.

I see the divine…the holy…the sacred…as those things in life which remind me of my own highest aspirations and peak experiences, and of those highest hopes and aspirations of the people I love and serve. ….namely…You!

For those of us who need a god, there is a god waiting for you to discover and define for yourself. For those of you who do not need a specific god figure or concept, but need a community of like minded questioners, of sympathetic agnostics, atheists, humanists, Buddhists, pagans, pantheists and even panentheists, …and you are all in the right place. As far as the God continuum goes…"wherever you are, there you are", and wherever you are will be right for you…and if it isn’t… then here is the place where you can change your mind…and even change it back again…we don’t call it wishy washy….we call it spiritual exploration…

And that, … that journey …that lifelong dialog with the Mystery, …that reasoned inquiry….how ever it plays out and wherever it takes us, is where we are on the God continuum, for that day and that time. It’s who we are and where we are… here and now, and ………hopefully, but not guaranteed…tomorrow. This journey is the gift of life…and however we choose to negotiate it, we need to do the best we possibly can…because as far as I know….we only get one.