What Unitarian Christianity Means to Me

Sermon delivered at the Thoreau UU Congregation, Houston, TX
October 28, 2001

Let me give you a little of my religious background. I was born and raised in the Roman Catholic faith. Wonderful faith. It's the faith that gave me my family values. It's the faith that gave me most, but not all, of my political values. And it's also the faith that gave me my spiritual values. But like many of you here, I was one who questioned alot about what I was taught. But I was never aggressive about any dissenting views that I had. I was never in-your-face about my doubts. Deep down, though, I've always retained the Christian identity because, since I was raised with it, I found it hard to let go.

I am grateful to the Catholic faith for teaching me about the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. I knew Christ was a man of God, in the Judaic sense. But there was one big thing that always puzzled me about the Christian faith. The Trinity. Although I professed the Catholic faith, I never understood the Trinity. The Church taught that God was a Triune God - one, but three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. But I was puzzled by Biblical passages that portrayed Jesus praying to God, addressing him as "Father." (John 17:1; Matt 26:39; and Luke 23:46.) Jesus even left behind the Lord's Prayer, or the "Our Father," for his followers to recite. But, I asked myself, if God were Jesus why would he pray to himself?

It wasn't until early in highschool that I discovered that, yes, there existed another brand of Christianity. One that I could understand. Unitarianism. I was introduced to Unitarianism by reading the works of Robert Fulghum, who happens to be a Unitarian Universalist minister. He mentioned in one of his books that he was Unitarian, and he even described the services he conducted, and since then my curiosity has been ablaze. I started reading various documents and articles about the development of Unitarianism, and I especially took solace in the works of William E. Channing. I found that Unitarianism was founded on the unity of God, rather than the Trinity, yet still followed the teachings of Jesus, and stressed the goodness of humanity.

The Bible, which I revere as a symbolic library of hope, tells us in 1 Thes, chp. 5, verse 21, to "Test everything and hold on to the good." William E. Channing was fond of this verse. So far, these are the good things I've held on to, and that explain what Unitarian Christianity means to me.

As a Unitarian Christian, I try to walk my days lit up by the awareness of something greater than myself. Something that watches over me, and over all of us. That something I choose to call God...

When I say God I mean it in a broad Judeo-Christian sense. And when I say broad I mean that I'm open to multiple interpretations to better shape and add to my view of God. To me, God is not only the First Cause, but the Eternal Cause of all things. Just to give you a visual, imagine a little black dot. Now draw a circle around that dot. Then around the circle draw a square. The dot represents us and all life, the circle represents the universe, and the square represents God. So in my view, we are literally inside God. God's the fish bowl, we're the fish. It's just a matter of time before we get caught by a hook.

Continuing, as a Unitarian Christian I seek freedom from prejudice and unkindness, so that I may walk humbly with my God.

As a Unitarian Christian, I highly value the freedom and authority of one's conscience, guided by God, to evaluate and asnwer religious questions.

As a Unitarian Christian, I strongly support personal interpretation of scripture, so that I may better exercise and nuture my own rational and emotional faculties, made possible by the gift of Free Will.

As a Unitarian Christian, I believe that Christ came to minister to the world he loved and that he came to save us from, 1) sin, by teaching us to reach inward and outward for God, 2) ignorance, by showing us how to be tolerant, loving, and understanding towards different people, and 3) the fear of death, by teaching us that if we live in the joy of God, or life, death will not burry us, but only make our days here on earth more precious.

And finally, as a Unitarian Christian, I honor and value all the great prophetic men and women of the past, such as Channing, who have paved the way for free and liberal faith communities here in the United States. I also honor the prophetic men and women who keep these communities alive today, and in the future.

In the words of William E. Channing, I pray that we all may be delivered from prejudice and unkindness, and be filled with the love of truth and virtue.