FROM BAPTIST PREACHER’S KID
TO UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST MINISTER
Rev. Kit Ketcham,
June 4, 2023, 1st Presbyterian church, Astoria
Nancy Cole invited me to speak with you today about Unitarian Universalism and, rather than dig out my old lecture notes from seminary and the multiple meetings with fellow interns during that four year stretch of my life, it made better sense to start at the beginning of MY understanding of American Baptist doctrine and the covenantal path of Unitarian Universalism.
I was born an American Baptist Preacher’s kid in the hospital in Chehalis; my Dad was the pastor of the Mossyrock Community church. I was their first-born, or at least the first child to survive after two stillbirths. My younger sister and brother were born in Portland hospitals, after our family moved from Mossyrock to Portland, where my Dad served the Calvary Baptist church on 42nd and Holgate.
We Baptist kids, much like you Presbyterian (or Methodist or Lutheran or other denominations), received our early religious education in Sunday School classes where we learned Bible verses, listened to stories and parables and both Old and New Testament wisdom. As we got older, we shared discussion about some of the principles of our Christian faith and about the early stories of Creation and Jesus’ life.
For me and my siblings, at least, it was a warm and loving experience. Our parents were well-loved by the congregation and we were doted upon by members of our church and thought of it as a loving place. We had no reason to argue with anything scriptural, even though we might question a miracle or two. If we did, we did so silently.
After 8 years in Portland, we moved east to the little town of Athena, in between Pendleton and Walla Walla. I was nine when we moved, horse-crazy, smart-alecky, and a bit of a brainiac.
We kids had never gone to public schools before Athena; our parents had been instrumental in starting up the Portland Christian Schools system, which, in addition to the normal academic lessons, was heavy on the Bible education as well.
After graduation from Athena grade school and McEwen high school, I went on to Linfield College, an American Baptist-supported 4 year college, a scholarship student by virtue of my Dad’s profession.
At Linfield, we were required to take certain religion classes, taught by professors whose knowledge and understanding were greater than that of the volunteers who taught Sunday School at the Athena Baptist Church. I had come to wonder if the stories I had learned over time about such miracles as a virgin birth, water into wine, and resurrections had more to them than what I had learned from my SS teachers, whose knowledge had not come from advanced university studies.
But I was a good kid, didn’t want to upset my parents, whose theology was conservative and unquestioning. Their own religious education had been in small town Sunday Schools and, after my Dad felt called to the ministry, at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, not exactly your hotbed of liberality.
After college graduation, my first job was in the welfare office of WA state public assistance in Goldendale, where I served the families and old age recipients of WA’s public assistance program, as a caseworker in Klickitat and Skamania counties. I enjoyed this job but I was appalled by the poverty and frustration I saw in the families I served.
My family had never been rich, far from it, on a preacher’s salary, but a paltry couple of hundred dollars to make it through a month with kids and no work in the timber industries because of logging accidents and the feast or famine income of a seasonal job.
After a year or so of living near my parents and driving into the tiny settlements in the Klickitat valley, I was wondering if this was all my life was going to be, shuttling from one sick family to another, dealing with grouchy WWII vets who were disabled and dependent on the monthly assistance check. It was sad, solitary work, and I was not flourishing.
One day, combing through the daily mail, I chanced upon a flier addressed to my Dad, advertising a seminar in Yakima at the First Baptist Church, six weekly sessions taught by a professor from Seattle on “The Life of Jesus”. That was a course I had dearly loved at Linfield. I was determined to go, even though it was winter, the Simcoe mountains and Satus Pass were treacherous in snowy weather, but my little Ford Falcon and I were raring to go. To my parents’ credit, they did not try to dissuade me; they could tell I was languishing and I needed to do something different.
That course was life-changing, not so much because of the topic, but because of the discussion about things I’d always wondered about---Jesus’ courage, his knowledge of Jewish tradition and how his teachings challenged the tradition in many ways, the path he laid down for his followers was stunning---and I wanted to take it.
The clincher for me was at the final session, when a bigwig from the ABC brought with him to that session a young man who spoke to us about outreach programs in the American Baptist Home Mission Society: Baptist Community Centers in cities all over America.
That young man, Rev. Henry Hardy, talked with me after the session about the places where there were vacancies and needed program workers to carry out the humanitarian and spiritual work of the center. I was hooked, not only on becoming a Home Missionary but also on the very appealing Rev. Hardy, who now has been a friend to me all my adult life and whom I credit with giving me the information I needed to change the trajectory of my life.
So I was commissioned as an American Baptist Home Missionary and arrived in Denver at the Christian Center there, in the inner city. I loved this work, spending time with kids and parents of many races---Black, Asian, Latino---in preschool classes at the center, after-school activities for middle-schoolers, teen canteens on weekends for older kids, an employment counselor on the premises, a clothing closet for needy families. And a church service every Sunday morning for which I played the piano.
My boss, the Rev. George Turner, was a Black man who had recently returned from the Civil Rights activities in Selma, Alabama. This was 1966. My Dad invited me to speak on one occasion when I had returned to Goldendale for a family Thanksgiving. I spoke enthusiastically about the programming at the Denver Christian Center, and as inexperienced speakers will do, I ran out of things to say after 10 minutes or so.
So I opened it up to questions from the floor; most of those questions were about financial matters, the kinds of problems I would run into in those conditions, what did the Center need from the little Goldendale Baptist Church, that sort of thing.
At the very end, one fellow in the back raised his hand, and asked me “How many souls have you saved for Christ?” I stuttered and stammered with my answer, trying to relay the idea that our mission at the Center was humanitarian efforts to better people’s lives, not focused on heavenly salvation but on earthly survival.
As I left the sanctuary that day, wondering about his question and my answer, it occurred to me: “I am not that kind of Christian; I’m not sure I ever was or ever will be.” And I think about that moment yet today.
After the Denver Christian Center became a United Way agency, I went back to school for teaching credentials and began a career as a junior high school Spanish teacher and, later, a guidance counselor, which, though secular, gave me the sense of moving in the right direction in a humanitarian field.
Marriage to a Unitarian Universalist man, whom I met at a Denver Young Democrats meeting, showed me a religious path I had been largely unaware of. We attended church and protest rallies and I was intrigued by the juxtaposition of my Christian upbringing and the social justice work offered by the principles of Unitarian Universalism.
I learned that UUism had begun to develop in the third century, after the Council of Nicaea, when one of the bishops in that conclave resisted the development of the Trinity as a way of understanding the Divine.
The priest Arius, in the 3rd century, believed that Jesus was divine but not on the same level as God. He believed that Jesus' wisdom and teachings were more important than his death and resurrection. Arius believed that human beings could draw closer to God by following those teachings. As the Christian Church solidified and unified in the fourth century and adopted a Trinitarian theology, Arianism became the archetypal heresy for the orthodox.
And that’s where our first name comes from: Unitarian---the belief that Jesus was a separate entity from God, that Jesus’ teachings were the way to live a Godly life, and many early Christians followed Arius as their theological leader.
But the Trinity was a solidifying theology for those bishops intent on creating an institution which would bring early Christians together under a common theology. Unfortunately, this resulted in non-trinitarians being rejected as heretics and many were burned at the stake for their disbelief. John Calvin was a theologian who condemned and witnessed many burnings of heretical non-trinitarians.
Universalist, our second name, comes from the also heretical belief that a loving God would not consign his wayward children to Hell.
Christian universalism is a school of Christian theology focused around the doctrine of universal reconciliation – the view that all human beings will ultimately be saved and restored to a right relationship with God. Many of these believers were also considered heretics and punished, often gruesomely.
Unitarian Universalism has Christian roots, but as you can tell, we have somewhat rebellious ideas about orthodox Christianity.
These days, UU congregations, like the Pacific UU Fellowship, are more than Christian. We have Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, atheists, agnostics, Christians, Pagans, and none of the above, within our worshipping communities.
Obviously, it would be hard for us to specify that only One way of believing is the true faith, so over the years, we have moved beyond even non-traditional Christianity. Instead of a doctrine, we have principles of Right Actions that we covenant to affirm and promote.
Let me read you two documents that are foundational for Unitarian Universalists. The first is a list of our Seven Principles beginning with a statement of intent:
We, the Member Congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote the following values and ideals:
1st Principle: The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
2nd Principle: Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
3rd Principle: Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
4th Principle: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
5th Principle: The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
6th Principle: The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
7th Principle: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
Unitarian Universalist congregations affirm and promote these seven Principles, which we hold as strong values and moral guides. We live out these Principles within a “living tradition” of wisdom and spirituality, drawn from sources as diverse as science, poetry, scripture, and personal experience.
These are the six sources our congregations affirm and promote:
• Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
• Words and deeds of prophetic people which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;
• Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
• Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
• Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;
• Spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.
I’ve mentioned that Unitarian Universalism is a “Living Tradition”, which means that we are continually aware of the need to examine our faith, to note where our priorities are or are not in synchronicity with our principles and reflect the wisdom of our sources.
To that end, we review our principles regularly to see if we need to add something, some action, some new understanding, to our statement of faith. In addition, we review our sources to make sure we include the many streams of meaningful words and actions which guide our lives.
In recent years, we have been working on the issue of racism within our denomination and how it has affected our behavior toward the many People of Color inside and outside of our congregations; it has caused us to restate our values and assign actions to each, to help us develop our awareness of white supremacy and the damage done by our ignorant mistakes.
We respond to the call of love because it is our common theological core.
It is what can and does motivate us and it illuminates our deepest commitments to each other.
We have many luminaries in our religious tradition, as do you Presbyterians
and other denominations. Here are a few names you may recognize and see the great variety of religious thinkers and social justice activists in our ranks:
John Quincy Adams, US president
Louisa May Alcott, children’s writer
Bela Bartok, composer
Beatrix Potter, children’s writer
Ee cummings, poet
Charles Dickens, author
Dorothea Dix, social reformer
Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and thinker
Edvard Grieg, composer
Sylvia Plath, poet
Mary Wollstonecraft, feminist
Christopher Reeve, actor (Superman!)
Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the world wide web
and Pete Seeger, musician and folk hero
Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religious tradition that was formed from the consolidation of two religious bodies: Unitarianism and Universalism. In America, the Univeralist Church of America was founded in 1793 and the American Unitarian Association in 1825.
After consolidating in1961, these faiths became the new religion of Unitarian Universalism. Since the merger of the two denominations in 1961, UUism has nurtured its Unitarian and Universalist heritages to provide a strong voice for social justice and liberal religion.
Our scripture readings for today are representative, for me, of the Jesus Path I chose to walk long ago. Jesus states the Greatest Commandment in his answer to a questioner who asked “Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” It is the bedrock of my spiritual life.
Micah’s statement in verse 8 of chapter 6 is “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
Over the years, as the King James Version has been retranslated time and again, written in more inclusive language and reflecting more of the diversity of Christian belief, I have modified my own religious language.
I do not think of God, anymore, as a Being; I think of God as a power, the power of the universe, the power of Love, the power of natural laws which control and guide our lives. If I strive to work WITH the powers of the universe, of Love, natural law, I will be doing the will of the Power beyond Human Power, which many call God.
I cherish many of the remnants of my earlier faith---the old hymns, the scriptures which are still meaningful, the rituals of prayer, of communion, of faithfulness to a creed or covenant that helps me shape my behavior. But I have let go of the difficult admonition “saving souls for Christ”. I give love instead, to all who come into my life, the best I can.
Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.
BENEDICTION:
Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, thinking about what shapes our lives, what guides us in the hard steps of human living? May we have the strength and will to follow our spiritual guides into a new place of spiritual and personal growth. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.
