From The Shooting Star, February 14, 2010. Copyright 2010, Ellen Rowse Spero. All rights reserved.
James Luther Adams, one of our premier modern Unitarian theologians and social ethicists, wrote extensively about the importance of voluntary association and the free church. He had witnessed first hand, during World War II in Europe, the dangers of religion as an institution of the state and its subsequent failure to stand over and against injustice, intolerance, and oppression carried out by the state. He feared the consequences of "unexamined faith", one that was a fully defined, received religion, which gave its followers no reason to examine or question its teachings.
Instead, he argued that religious community was best served when organized as a voluntary association where its members entered freely into a covenant of faith and fellowship, of discerning and examining together what our faith means to us and how it calls us to live and act in the world. As George Beach writes of Adams, "…he is centrally interested in the uses and abuses of human freedom, or more pointedly, in the social consequences of faith. He recalls a sentence by Ernst Troeltsch: ‘The highest act of freedom is faith.’ Freedom so conceived is a creative freedom, a shaping of human existence with full awareness of what we value and choose to live for. In short, freedom requires a reasoned examination of one’s faith. Authentic faith is ultimate reliance, and it is anything but blind." (p. 2 in An Examined Faith).
Adams speaks to the heart of what it means to be Unitarian Universalist. Ours is a free church tradition. We are a voluntary association of free churches, congregations which have agreed to join together in a covenant, grounded in right relationship, rather than right belief. Our Association covenant is better known as our Purposes and Principles, and can be found in the beginning of our hymnals, Singing the Living Tradition and Singing the Journey. Our congregation is also a voluntary association, a gathering of souls in faith and fellowship who choose First Parish as their religious home, and each other as the ones to help each of us examine our individual faith and our relationship with the sacred or ultimacy, and to challenge and support one another in creating and nurturing a more just, a more compassionate and a more peaceful world.
Thus, two essential elements of our religious community, membership and leadership, are choices we make. Unitarian Universalists are generally reluctant to talk about either. I think this is because we don’t want to be seen as pressuring anyone into a commitment or to be evangelizing. However, this makes membership and leadership seem a bit of a mystery or even a secret. Membership is making the commitment to enter formally into covenant with our congregation; to agree walk with us in a life of examined faith, to support our congregational life through the giving of time, talent, and treasure; and to know in turn, that we are here to support you as you may need. Membership requires a financial pledge (although financial need will not keep you from being a member) and an understanding that you will participate in the life of our congregation, as you are able. The privileges of membership include a voice and vote in our congregational meetings and the right to serve in the elected positions of leadership. The actual act of joining is the signing of our Membership Book. We welcome all our new members in a worship service in the spring. If you are interested in becoming a member, or have questions, feel free to contact me. The Membership Committee will also be holding a New Member class in March.
As important as choosing to become a member is accepting positions of leadership in turn, whether in an elected role, serving on a committee, or in a short term project. In order for us to be a free church, to have our leadership and decision-making rest in our congregation rather than in an outside authority, we have to be willing to discern when we are able, as individuals, to step into positions of leadership and when we are not. There are times in our lives when we cannot - when we do not have the time, the energy, or when we are facing burdens and are in need of care ourselves. But there are also times when we can and need to say yes. Part of being a free church is honoring our individual decisions to say yes or no, to membership, to leadership, and to the other things we ask of each other with regard to giving of our time, talent or treasure. But for us to live as a free church, we must be able to ask each other these things without fear, and with the trust that each of us can make our decisions, say our yes with confidence, or our no without guilt. Ultimately, it is up to all of us as to who we will be as a community of faith, what we will be able to do to live out our Unitarian Universalist religion together.
--- Rev. Ellen