A recent issue of Newsweek magazine featured a cover story on American spirituality. In conjunction with Beliefnet.com, Newsweek commissioned a poll to identify how Americans worship, what they believe, and what they are looking for in their religious lives. The article was entitled "In Search of the Spiritual." The first paragraph reads: "Move over, politics. Americans are looking for personal, ecstatic experiences of God, and, according to our poll, they don't much care what their neighbors are doing."¹

I expected to learn from this article more about what I already thought I knew: more about the political might of conservative Christianity; more about religious fundamentalism; more about religious intolerance; more about moral values. This is not at all how the article characterizes the American religious landscape. The authors write about "a breadth of tolerance and curiosity virtually across the religious spectrum." They write of "a flowering of spirituality: in the hollering, swooning, foot-stomping services of the new wave of Pentecostals; in the Catholic churches where worshippers pass the small hours of the night alone, contemplating the eucharist, and among Jews who are seeking God in the mystical thickets of Kabbalah. Also, in the rebirth of Pagan religions that look for God in the wonders of the natural world; in Zen and innumerable other threads of Buddhism, whose followers seek enlightenment through meditation and prayer, and in the efforts of American Muslims to achieve a more God-centered Islam."²

American religion has become overly politicized in recent years. This Newsweek article is refreshing and hard to believe, because it describes religion in our nation without notable reference to politics. It asks how Americans use religion to further their spiritual lives, not their political agendas-a rare approach for the media to take in recent times. I was humbled. This article forced me to ask myself, as a Unitarian Universalist minister and leader, to what extent have I been drawn into the politicization of religion? To what extent have I plunged into politics at the expense of our spiritual lives?

The article made scant mention of Unitarian Universalism. I trust this is so either because nobody in the survey identified as UU, or because we are such a small denomination that we simply don't register for an article of this scope. But there's a tugging at my heart, asking, is it possible Unitarian Universalism has emphasized political action and countering the politics of the religious right so much that when Newsweek does an article on religion focusing not on politics but on spirituality, there is nothing significant to say about us? The Rev. Bill Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, said as much in his essay in the most recent UU World magazine. "In the public square," he writes, "we are becoming a respected voice for liberal religious values on particular issues. We've worked hard to achieve that. But, sadly, most people remain unaware of who we are and what we stand for. No one asks a Baptist what that faith stands for. Some day, I pray, the same will be true of Unitarian Universalism."³ Are we known more for our politics than our spiritual message?

Newsweek makes reference to a famous Time magazine article published on Good Friday of 1966, raising the question Is God Dead? That article, almost forty years old now, focused on a small group of intellectuals from mainline Protestant denominations. Its scope was very limited. God and the search for God actually weren't dying at that time. "What was dying in 1966," says Newsweek, "was a well-meaning, but arid theology born of rationalism: a wavering trumpet call for ethical behavior, a search for meaning in a letter to the editor in favor of civil rights."⁴ I was struck by this particular sentence because it is possible to describe Unitarian Universalism in these terms. Our approach to theology is born of rationalism. We put a heavy emphasis on ethical living; and there are not enough fingers on my two hands to count the number of letters to the editor I've had published in favor of civil rights. Again, I am humbled and challenged to look at Unitarian Universalism, this congregation and my ministry from a different perspective asking, 'have we, over the course of the past 200 years, reduced ourselves from a religion to a liberal social action group focused primarily on ethics? In the midst of our beloved skepticism and rationality, have we missed the dominant religious trend in the United States over the past two decades, the advent of a new seeking for an immediate and transcendent experience of the holy? Not the trend towards religious fundamentalism; that is something entirely different and truly a creature of politics. I am talking about the trend of people searching honestly and with deep longing in their hearts, for God-God named and understood in countless ways. Newsweek said it well: "the real spiritual quest is not to put another conservative on the Supreme Court, or to get creation science into the schools. If you experience God directly, your faith is not going to hinge on whether natural selection could have produced the flagellum on a bacterium."⁵

I will not refrain from engagement in the public square on behalf of Unitarian Universalist values. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina I feel more compelled than ever to challenge structures of racism and classism that pervade our society. I will not abandon my political commitments as a UU minister. I will continue to urge this congregation to be active in the life of the larger community and its justice struggles. However, I, like you, must always remember: politics and political issues do not define Unitarian Universalism. Ours is not the religious expression of a political ideology. Our politics and our commitment to particular political and social causes flow forth from our deeper religious and spiritual convictions. And those convictions, in turn, flow forth from our direct experience, both personal and collective, of that which is sacred to us. We need to be clear about what that is. And I say this not because there are millions of people out there hungering for spiritual depth, connection and community who are actually Unitarian Universalists but just don't know it yet. No! We need to be clear about what that is for our own sake. We need to be clear because we are part of this new trend in the American religious landscape. We are part of this seeking. In fact, Unitarians and Universalists were seeking well before it became a trend. We know all about seeking. We are hungering for spiritual depth and connection. We are yearning for a religious community that can provide that direct experience of the sacred. We celebrate the sacred because it matters to us; we join together in the responsible search for truth and meaning because it deepens and expands our living. And if we do this well, if we do this with excellence; if we satiate our own hunger; if we fulfill our own longings, I believe, with all my heart, the millions will come to Unitarian Universalism, and Rev. Sinkford's prayer will be answered: no one will have to ask what Unitarian Universalism stands for.

We've come to a moment in Unitarian Universalist history when many voices are calling for us to become clear about what that is, about the core of our faith. One of them is Vicki, our Director of Religious Education, whose theme for the year is "I'm a UU." Both Ted Pappas and I have said "let's adopt 'I'm a UU' as a theme for the rest of the congregation as well." It sounds simple, but it's not. Another voice calling for clarity is the Unitarian Universalist Association's Commission on Appraisal. For those of you who haven't heard me talk about it yet, the Commission on Appraisal is a standing committee of our denomination, the Unitarian Universalist Association, whose members are elected by the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly. The Commission's purpose is to study the life of our denomination, and make a report every four years. The most recent report, published in June, is entitled "Engaging our Theological Diversity." It raises a really big question: "What is the core of our faith?"

Those who are new to our congregation might be wondering, why do these people not know the core of their faith? Or worse, you might be wondering if I'm one of those angry preachers who is about to tell the congregation about the eternal punishment for not knowing the core of our faith. Well, I'm not angry, and there is no eternal punishment. The reason we struggle with this question, the reason the Commission on Appraisal could raise this question, is largely because Unitarian Universalism came into being in 1961 as one of the first religions ever whose followers did not gather around a common theology. They gathered around a common set of ethical principles and a common set of assumptions about how congregations should be governed and how they should relate to each other. Theology was left wide open.

Unitarians historically knew what their theological center was. Unitarianism refers to one God, to the humanity of Jesus, and to a liberal Christian critique of Trinitarian doctrine as scripturally unsound. Universalists historically knew what their theological center was. Universalism refers to universal salvation, the liberal Christian idea that all people are reconciled to God and there is no eternal punishment. But by the 1950s both religions had undergone theological growth. Liberals embrace growth. By the 1950s Unitarians and Universalists were growing distant from their liberal Christian roots. They were inspired by the teachings of other world religions. They had become sanctuaries for humanists, atheists, and agnostics, for questioners, seekers, and all those who felt constrained by the creedal tests required in conservative religious traditions.

The Commission on Appraisal found that when the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America merged in 1961, they didn't adequately take up the question of how to merge theologies. Maybe this was wise, but almost forty-five years later, we are stunted in our capacity to talk about theology, and to answer with ease the question, 'what is the core of our faith?' As the report puts it: "Repeatedly, people have told us, 'we don't talk about [theology] at my church.' Everything we have observed suggests that we commissioners are breaking a taboo that Unitarian Universalism took on subconsciously at [merger]-the taboo against talking through the need to merge theologies. This taboo seems to have been based on a fear that if we start to talk about our beliefs, we may discover we are totally incompatible with one another, and our congregations will fall apart."⁶

I applaud the Commission for taking on this question. Their report is wonderful. As soon as it came in the mail, I turned to the "conclusions" section. They don't get to the core of our faith, nor do they claim to. They saw it as their job to raise the question and to point the rest of us in certain directions. In the end, what they really want is for Unitarian Universalists to expand our ethics-oriented religious identities with deep and heartfelt theological reflection. They want Unitarian Universalists to be theologians, so that we really can engage our theological diversity, so that we really can talk about what we each believe, so that we really can demonstrate to the world it is possible to believe in profoundly different ways and still love one another.

They may not have found the core of our faith, but they certainly found what most Unitarian Universalists agree on. I read to you earlier from the conclusion of the report, and I remind you now of some of that language. As individuals we base our convictions -and I would add our theologies and our spiritual practices-on our own experiences. We embrace a sense of the possible-an openness to what is unknown-the not-yet, the new, the different. We are committed to being people of character. As communities, we protect and respect individual freedom and support an active quest for greater understanding. We share a conviction that wisdom emerges from the process of dialoguing across our differences in community. Toward the world we are moved to resist societal practices that counter the values of justice, equity, and compassion. And we affirm a vision of the natural world as an interdependent web of which we are inextricably a part-not as dominators, but as companions, and at times protectors.⁷ Much of this restates the Unitarian Universalist principles, and I think it is good to know that this exhaustive study has re-affirmed those principles as a common bond among us.

But the report calls for more. It is not sufficient to proclaim the value of theological diversity without being more forthright about what we each hold to be true in the deeper recess of our hearts. I want us to fully embrace the Commission's challenge that we become theologians, develop our capacity to talk to each other across theological differences, develop our contemplative practices, and develop the spiritual, theological and prophetic grounding of our social justice efforts.

This is what I believe: Our congregation and Unitarian Universalism will not fall apart as we become more honest and articulate about our theologies. I believe we will become stronger as a congregation and as a movement. I believe we will love how meeting this challenge expands our understanding of what it means when we say "I'm a UU." And I believe the millions of seekers across our nation, people longing for an authentic experience of the holy, people who want meaning and purpose in their lives in the face of suffering, in the face of unbridled materialism, in the face of oppression, will find it in Unitarian Universalist congregations.

Amen and Blessed Be.