We are all familiar with Paddy McElroy’s magnificent sculpture which forms such a prominent part of the interior of our beautiful church. You can see it over there against the side wall; it represents an aspect of the Unitarian ethos by incorporating all the major faith traditions of the world. I wonder how many of us are familiar with another piece of Paddy’s work, this time on the exterior wall of the church – a bronze plaque which you can see on the right as you go up the steps (or at least you could if it wasn’t temporarily obscured by scaffolding). On it you can read the following statement: ‘this church is open to all those who wish to worship in a spirit of freedom, reason and tolerance’. These are key words for us Unitarians. They were coined by the Unitarian historian Earl Morse Wilbur who wrote the definitive two volume History of Unitarianism which was published in the middle of the last century. (Wilbur died in 1956) The words have established themselves as principles of Unitarianism. We, who in spite of our love of words so often feel that our particular brand of religion is hard to define or explain, can find ourselves strangely puzzled and confused when asked to define what precisely it is that holds us all together. Then these three words come to our rescue. They have stood the test of time, we feel, they are as ‘true’ today as they ever were, and are still applicable to us and to our approach to religion and life.
But are they?
I began to thinking about this coming up to the millennium, when we were all wondering what direction the world and our lives were going to take and what we could or should do to shape the future in so far as you can shape it. I was thinking about the future of Unitarianism. We are in a somewhat unique position regarding our religion – we can shape its future ourselves. Because it is an organic and evolving religion it changes in response to our reactions. So what it does and what it becomes will be in large measure the product of what we think and do now. So I thought about these three great words which have served us so well, and I would ask you to think about them now. I found this a very interesting exercise. Do you think they still adequately define both our present position and our aspirations for the future? Are there any words you would suggest in their place? After all, words have to be interpreted against their historical background, and these particular words are now having to relate to a very different climate from the one in which they were first used as principles of religion. The context around them has changed to such an extent that it might be useful – and helpful – for us to challenge them, or at least challenge our use of them, and to re-interpret them. Let’s begin with the first: freedom. When Unitarianism thinkers began to emerge in the 16th and 17th centuries, freedom of religious interpretation was unknown. To deny, or even to question, orthodoxy was to risk imprisonment or even death. But nowadays, in our secular western society, the wonder is that anyone has a religious view at all, and so such freedom is not the big issue it once was. On the other hand, the rise of extremist religious views both in Islam and in the Christian Right is becoming so marked, and seems so implacable, that the time may be coming when we have to claim it for ourselves all over again. But we may have to be more specific in what we mean by freedom. It has become a word that nowadays is loosely used, over-used, mis-used and even abused. In fact, abuse of the principle of freedom has pushed individualism to such excesses of greed and selfishness as to threaten the very existence of society. Perhaps the time has come for us to consider what this fine word means to us, and how we apply it, as well as giving some thought to what it means – or what we think it should mean - to other people and how we would like them to apply it. Where, for example, are the limits of freedom, and what are the responsibilities of freedom, and, most importantly, who decides? Reason has lost some of its impact too. In the 19th century it seemed that all problems could be solved by reason and that society could be improved, indeed perfected, by a combination of intelligence and logical thinking. That touching trust in reason no longer holds; the range and scale of disasters in the 20th century (and followed up in the first five years of this one) caused by both human folly and viciousness have meant that reason has lost a lot of credibility. And what about tolerance? The demands made on tolerance have increased beyond measure. It was a fine thing for Voltaire to say, two and a half centuries ago, ‘I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it’. Life, though probably no easier, was simpler in those days, and tolerance against a background of intolerance and conformity is a very different matter from tolerance against today’s background of permissiveness and moral indecision. I greatly admire what Voltaire said, but I am not sure that it is still entirely valid. We Unitarians pride ourselves on our tolerance of other religious viewpoints, which we seek to understand and respect and learn from. But there have to be restrictions here too - don’t there? Where does tolerance lapse into indifference, for example, and what are the implications of that? Or – when we are faced with confrontation in the case of extremist religious views and the challenge they pose to the rest of us – what happens if you offer tolerance to others and your tolerance is taken as weakness and exploited? How do you handle that? Are there circumstances – and I think in today’s world we have to ask ourselves such questions – in which fostering a climate of tolerance could actually contribute to extremism by allowing it space to flourish? I leave you to ponder these issue for yourselves. In the best Unitarian tradition I am asking questions rather than answering them. But I would like to feel I was opening the debate to the floor. Meanwhile, as my contribution to the debate, I would like to offer a few thoughts on one of our three words. I suggest it is arguably the most important of the three because it may hold the key to our consideration of the other two. It is a critically important word in Unitarianism and I think it deserves our very close attention. Reason is the driving force behind Unitarianism. Isn’t it? It propels our own individual Unitarian search for truth and meaning in our lives. Doesn’t it? Are we not all here because in one way or another our reason has shown us what we consider to be the fallacies and inadequacies of other forms of religious observance? Reason was certainly what led me to Unitarianism, and I can still remember the overwhelming relief I experienced when every further exploration and experience of my discovery reinforced my first gut-reaction: ‘Ah, yes, this fits, this makes sense’. But as we have found, time has shown that reason alone is not enough to guide the development of a religious movement. Certainly, it seems to be the case in some Unitarian congregations (happily not this one) that over-dependence on reason leads into an arid cul-de-sac of political correctness and exclusively social and political issues. Logically, if this trend continues, I have heard it said, Unitarianism will become sterile: it will wither and die. I know our own minister feels that the solution lies in fostering spirituality. His view is that if people’s thirst for a spiritual dimension to their lives can be met, then, the movement will be revitalized. It’s hard to argue with this. I think he is right. But I would be very concerned to keep reason at the cutting edge of any development of Unitarianism because in my view it is its safeguard. Without the exercise of reason, religion can go down some very questionable roads. Any belief or practice that runs counter to reason is, to my way of thinking, ultimately unsustainable and not Unitarianism at all. So how do we resolve this one? How do we develop spiritually and at the same time keep a firm grip on our reasoning powers? Some years ago I decided that my artistic education had been neglected, and that the time had come to take action. So I enrolled for an extra mural course in UCD called, I hoped appropriately, ‘Art for Beginners, Stage 1’. In the event I never got as far as stage 2, but that’s another story. On the course I came across a book called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, by Betty Edwards. Many of you here probably know it. You may also know much more than I do about the brain and how it works. So forgive me if all this is familiar. All I knew (vaguely) was that the human brain is divided into two halves, the left side and the right side, and that they each function differently. But there’s a lot more to it than that. Betty Edwards is not a medical person, she’s an art teacher, but she writes clearly and well and I found what she had to say about the human brain extremely interesting. Let me summarise, if I can. Imagine you are looking at a whole walnut without its shell. This is a model of the brain. The two halves are connected, but distinct from each other. The left side is the logical, rational side of our brain, the bit that is mathematical, careful and precise. The right side has a completely different function and is in charge of the creative, intuitive, impulsive side of our nature, the artistic one. Betty Edwards’ aim in this book is to show us how to tap into the right side of the brain in order to draw. The left side of our brain, the logical side, won’t let us be artists. It will say things like ‘That doesn’t look like a tree – whoever saw a tree like that?’ – it will put us down, and bully us and try to control us. It stifles any creative impulse or artistic initiative. It is our misfortune that in the western world our educational system has since the days of Aristotle been established along these critical, logical lines. As a result the left side of our brain has over the centuries been systematically encouraged, developed, trained and listened to, to the almost complete neglect of the right side. Sometimes we tap into the right side without being aware of what we are doing. When we become absorbed by something we lose track of time – how often have we said ‘I didn’t feel the time passing’. This is because the left side of the brain, which is the part that monitors our awareness of time, has been temporarily stilled. So when we listen to music, or lose ourselves in anything we love doing, we are being influenced unwittingly by the right side of our brain. Surely this can be applied to religious matters. A lot of religious experience, or what passes for religious experience, is impulsive, intuitive and non-rational. In other words it is right-brain territory. When we meditate, or pray, or ‘lose ourselves’ in contemplation we are allowing the right brain to dominate, and so the left side, that reasons, corrects, and controls our impulses, is quietened and by-passed. We emerge from such experiences refreshed and renewed. Learning about this helped my understanding. For example, I used to find it incredible that anyone could ‘believe’ in something that is scientifically impossible. I thought that to say you ‘believed’ aspects of religion that defy reason was to be either hypocritical or intellectually lazy. Now I can realize that people who make such claims are merely using their right brain without applying any corrective from the left side. We Unitarians are predominantly left brain people. We love words and language, we rationalize, we debate and we expect a prolonged verbal process to arrive, eventually, at ‘the truth’. We think we can sort our religious view by discussing it fully. But of course, that’s not possible. If we try to do that we are still only using the left part of our brain, and if we continue on that track we end up in sterility. I think this may be what is happening to some of the present day Unitarian congregations that Bill Darlison describes. The answer seems to me to lie in the fact that we just need to learn to use both parts of our brain. They need to be correctives of each other. Our Unitarian forebears brought reason into the religious arena. It was seriously reinforced in the age of Enlightenment in the 18th century when Unitarians were not the only ones who, in their enthusiasm, thought reason could solve everything. Now it has been demonstrated that it can’t. It is essential for our welfare on every level that we listen to the right side of our brains. That’s where inspiration and creativity and connectedness lie. But of course to rely only on the right side leads to disaster too. If we ignore our left brain reasoning powers we may find ourselves adrift in a sea of irrational and emotional responses that could swing with every wind that blows. This would seem to me to be what happens in a lot of emotionally inspired religions. While it is essential for the future of Unitarianism that it makes room for right brain responses in religious practice, it is equally essential that the left brain corrective power is retained. Reason is not the only player on the field, but, in my opinion, it must always be the referee.
Jennifer Flegg
Dublin Unitarian Church 28th August 2005