American Unitarian Conference Forum

“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8).

“God's existence cannot be proved, as against one disposed to deny it. But this is no misfortune; for in this respect belief in God stands on the same basis as belief in our own existence, and in that of the outward universe. Neither of these can be proved. They are not believed on the ground of argument, but are known experimentally. I know my own existence, through consciousness, by a mental experience. I know the outward universe, through observation, by the experience of the senses. We commune with ourselves through consciousness: we commune with nature, through the senses. From this communion results our knowledge of each. We know God in the same way, just as far as we commune with him outwardly and inwardly. When we look through nature, and see, back of its changing events an unchanging Cause, under its finite phenomena an infinite Substance, and behind its manifold adaptations an intelligent design, —we come into communion with God through nature. When we look within, and, behind our wrong being and doing, find the conception of a perfect right; behind our lukewarm affections, the idea of a perfect love; and behind our sorrows and weakness, the undying hope of a perfect peace, —we commune with God inwardly. All knowledge comes from communion or intercourse; that is, action and reaction. We cannot know any thing passively. Knowledge arises from life. The knowledge of the outward world comes from sensible experience, or living contact of the senses, by action and reaction. Knowledge of ourselves comes from conscious experience, by looking in upon ourselves, and setting the soul into a living activity. And so knowledge of God does not come passively to any man; but only as he communes, by an active spiritual experience, with God; or, as the Bible says, ‘Spiritual things must be spiritually discerned’” (James Freeman Clarke, Steps of Belief).

Too bad we cannot resurrect these gentlemen....too bad "our" theology schools don't convey such teachings...or that we don't often, if ever, hear such sermons today. I know, how 19th century of me. It is the last point that is in short supply in our current "Unitarian" churches ....the "Western" spiritual tools for spiritual discernment.

Good thoughts.

In the past few months, I have visited an African Methodist Episcopal Church and an Episcopalian Church. I much preferred the first, because they experience God while this particular Episcopalian Church merely talks about God.

I wonder if one of the reasons the mainline Protestant churches are losing members in such great numbers is because they seem afraid to experience God. No one wants to shout "Amen!"

Has anyone really enjoyed going to a mainline Protestant service lately? If so, could you please explain to me why? I don't mean that rhetorically. I'm genuinely curious. I've gone to Methodist and Episcopal and Presbyterian and Disciples of Christ services at various points in my life, and nearly always found myself checking my watch a lot.

(I know I just went off on a tangent, but it's in the context of experiencing God.)

Anyway, I appreciate all thoughts.

Regards,

Jason Ford

Jason, a book I am currently reading discusses the hiddenness of God and makes the point that most people really do not want to experience God because of the actual life changing results...the commonest prayer we make is "God, please don't look" when we are involved in less than ideal behaviors etc. This may reflect the cultural differences you have noted. It is easier to talk about God than to actually invite God into your life with the sometimes uncomfortable changes that entails.

"It is easier to talk about God than to actually invite God into your life with the sometimes uncomfortable changes that entails."

How true! Great quote.

By the way, thanks for all the posts. I suddenly felt like I had run out of things to say on this board, but I'm now back and ready to start contributing again.

[quote=Jason Ford]
Good thoughts.

I wonder if one of the reasons the mainline Protestant churches are losing members in such great numbers is because they seem afraid to experience God.  No one wants to shout "Amen!"  

I have just the opposite feelings.  As a private person, I would rather have a quite personal experience at church.  I would rather stay home than get up and shake the hands of the entire congregation during the services or make any kind of public declarations.  I try not to judge those who enjoy this but I personally avoid these kind of situations.

Kayh & Jason, a quick Google search turned up this interesting article:

http://www.albertmohler.com/commentary_r...2006-06-23
America's Vanishing Protestant Majority--What Does it Mean?

Though it is written by the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the studies cited are independent.

Keypoints:

"According to the University of Chicago press release, the percentage of Americans identifying themselves as Protestant "has been falling and will likely fall below 50 percent by mid-decade and may be there already."

"The report offers interesting points of analysis, including the fundamental failure of most Protestant denominations to evangelize and assimilate their own youth and young adults, and the fact that the nation's immigrant groups have not followed the older pattern of eventual identification with the nation's Protestant majority."

"Researcher Tom W. Smith told The Chicago Sun-Times: "There is some evidence that a large portion of this problem is that a fair number of marginal Protestants are not really engaged in their faith and therefore didn't pass it on to their kids. The mom and dad would say, for example, 'Yeah, we're Methodists,' but they never went to church. They'd baptize their kids, and that's about it."

"Among mainline Protestant denominations, theological liberalism has eroded the entire system of Christian doctrine, leading to the evaporation of faith and the secularization of those churches. Once the churches have been thoroughly secularized, what value remains in church membership and denominational identification?"

"Hutchison notes that the denominations affiliated with the liberal National Council of Churches have all experienced steady decline. Accommodating themselves to the spirit of the age, these churches embrace theological and moral relativism in an effort to remain "relevant" to a pluralistic culture."

"As Hoge, Johnson, and Luidens observed: "Our findings show that belief is the single best predictor of church participation, but it is orthodox Christian belief, and not the tenets of lay liberalism, that impels people to be involved in church."

"The churches that are most insistent on being relevant are those most willing to sacrifice biblical truth and the structure of Christian doctrine in order to prove their commitment to cultural expectations. Eventually, these churches become so identified with the culture that all distinctiveness disappears."

"Without a firm grasp of the Gospel, a bold commitment to biblical authority, and a clear vision for evangelism, churches and denominations are destined for decline and eventual dissipation."

This article also speaks to our efforts to keep the Unitarian tradition alive...be it Unitarian Christianity, Unitarian Deism etc. will only appeal to a small % of the population...and that is ok...I do think some of those dissatisfied Protestants are potential Unitarians...those who no longer find the orthodox teaching appealing but still long for a faith...one that retains God without the baggage of the past and has an open theology.

Another view can be found here:

http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=5100
Mainline Churches: The Real Reason for Decline
by Benton Johnson, Dean R. Hoge & Donald A. Luidens
Copyright © 1993 First Things (March 1993).

Selected passages:

"In our study, the single best predictor of church participation turned out to be belief-orthodox Christian belief, and especially the teaching that a person can be saved only through Jesus Christ. Virtually all our baby boomers who believe this are active members of a church. Among those who do not believe it, some are active in varying degrees; a great many are not. Ninety-five percent of the drop-outs who describe themselves as religious do not believe it. And amazingly enough, fully 68 percent of those who are still active Presbyterians don’t believe it either.

What do these nonorthodox "religious" baby boomers believe? Statistical analysis of their responses to our Gallup-style telephone questions revealed a "pick and choose" pattern similar to the one that sociologist Reginald Bibby found in a nationwide study of Canadians. For example, almost all our active Presbyterians believe in God and that Jesus Christ was the son of God, but almost 60 percent also believe that "all the different religions of the world are equally good ways of helping a person find ultimate truth."

"But we also discovered a pattern in the theological views of people who, on the Gallup-style theological questions, seemed to pick and choose their responses in unorthodox ways. We have named this pattern the theology of lay liberalism. It is "liberal" because its defining characteristic is the rejection of the view that Christianity is the only religion with a valid claim to truth. It is "lay" because it does not reflect any of the theological systems contained in the writings or seminary lectures of today’s post-orthodox Christian intellectuals."

"Most lay liberals "prefer" Christianity to other faiths, but they are unable to ground their preference in strong truth claims. A few simply told us that Christianity is "true for me," whereas Buddhism or Islam may be true for others, and some explained that they preferred Christianity because they were raised in that faith. But most lay liberals we talked to were uneasy with the nihilistic implications of this line of thought, and they proposed some universal grounding for their religious preference. Some believe that a common thread of truth runs through all the world’s major religions and that at base all religions teach the same thing. These people can give seemingly orthodox responses to Gallup-style items about Jesus and the Bible, but on closer questioning it turns out they believe that God also had a hand in writing the Koran and the Buddhist sutras. If God helped write all the world’s scriptures, there is no harm in belonging to any religion that one finds congenial. Lay liberals have a much broader notion of what is religiously respectable than old-time Presbyterians had. They are hard put to offer theological reasons why anyone should remain a Presbyterian, or even a Christian."

"From our interviews, we formed the firm impression that for many lay liberals the principal value of churches is that they support basic morality."

"Lay liberals do not care what theological views their children embrace or whether they attend church when they grow up, but they do want them to become "good people."

"Lay liberalism, on the other hand, is not an empowering system of belief but rather a set of conjectures concerning religious matters. It supports honesty and other moral virtues, and it encourages tolerance and civility in a pluralistic society, but it does not inspire the kind of conviction that creates strong religious communities.

One indication that lay liberalism is not an energizing "faith" is the fact that its advocates told us they rarely attempt to convert anyone to their point of view. "

(In regard to Presbyterian decline)
"But for many others, Sunday School, worship services, confirmation classes, and youth programs did not produce a commitment sufficiently strong to sustain itself in a milieu of family and peers in which religion was rarely mentioned."

"The underlying problem of the mainline churches cannot be solved by new programs of church development alone. That problem is the weakening of the spiritual conviction required to generate the enthusiasm and energy needed to sustain a vigorous communal life. Somehow, in the course of the past century, these churches lost the will or the ability to teach the Christian faith and what it requires to a succession of younger cohorts in such a way as to command their allegiance."

I agree that some sort of experience of God is important in religious services. UU churches in my area (Minneapolis-St. Paul) do not seem to value that at all and seem dedicated to holding "god talk" to a minimum. To them, liberal theology means no theology at all. I've only heard about two sermons in UU churches here that might be considered uplifting, and they were from a guest speaker from California.

I did like the sermons and other talks given by Rev. Walter Donald Kring at the Unitarian Church of All Souls in NYC back in the '70s. Now, I don't look to UU churches or clergy (of any denomination) for edification, and seek out groups rather than churches. (I did get a copy of Rev. Dorris' book and much appreciate that.)

I spent some time at the bookstore when I attended the UUA GA in 2004. Except for the several books that I had already read, there were no books there that I would care to read. Here, I do spend a bit of time in UU church libraries and find a few gems.

UCC churches here also tend to be spirtually lacking. Even the hymns familiar to me are no longer sung to recognizable (or singable) tunes. Great crowds of robed choir members often block the entrances, so even getting in can be a problem.

Occasionally, I attend a 7th Day Adventist church in my neighborhood. About 97 percent of the attendees are black. Almost all seem genuinely friendly and the singing is marvelous. It isn't necessary to accept the uncritical use of the teachings of Ellen G. White to to appreciate the adventists.

Well, I guess most of the people on this list have the same kind of problems with UU and other churches. My Unitarian and Universalist sensibility remains intact.

John