God's Nature

  This posting is a slight revision of a recent assignment:

     Both St. Augustine and St. Julian would agree that God cannot do what is not fitting for God; God cannot act contrary to God’s nature.   The differences in their understanding of salvation reflect differences in their understanding of God’s nature, sometimes with significant consequences. 

Augustine saw “that divine grace…working through the church, the sacraments, and the Christian faith, was a gift of God that “makes his worshippers into gods” which implies that not only was belief in salvation required, but repentance and behavior change must follow.  However, since Augustine viewed God as perfect in the Platonic sense, any change on God’s part would be unfitting.  Ultimately, this led to a belief in predestination.   A select few humans were predestined for salvation through God’s grace, and the remainder “would fail to respond and would therefore receive the just punishment that all deserved” (Chidester 2000, 139-140). 

          Julian specifically requests to see sin and damnation “whereby I could truly recognize how I [in my turn] ought to look at sin and the manner of our guilt” (Julian 225). However, this is not to be for Julian:  “But I saw not sin; for I believe it has no manner of essence nor any portion of being, nor can it be known except by the pain that is caused by it” (Julian 149).  Not only is she not shown any substance to sin, she is never shown any blame on the part of God.  To the contrary, she says “God, as far as He is concerned, cannot forgive—because He cannot be angry—it would be impossible” (Julian 221). It would be unfitting for God, who is the loving ground of our existence, to be angry, because anger is against His nature.   

         Julian says that “Sin is the harshest scourge that any chosen soul can be struck with.  This scourge chastises a man and a woman terribly and damages him to his own eyes to such an extent that sometimes he thinks of himself as not worthy except to sink into hell” (Julian 183).  Augustine exemplifies this when he says of his rising and falling due to the weight of his “carnal habits” that he “thought that I did not exist in such a state as to cleave to” God (Augustine 151).    This is a poignant example of the self recrimination that leads one to believe that one is separated from God, when in fact “our soul is so completely one-ed to God by His own goodness, that there can be absolutely nothing at all separating God and soul”  (Julian 213). 

          Although both St. Augustine and St. Julian appear to believe in predestination, the differences in their theology have extremely different outcomes for the world at large.  Initially, Augustine seems to believe that God wants us to love not only Him but the world as well, as indicated in this quote, “there is no healing for those who are displeased at some part of your creation” (Augustine 150).  But for Augustine, perfection is God’s most significant trait and over time, perfection and power eclipse love in importance.  This leads him to link “faith…with the coercive use of power,” which seems to contradict his earlier statement that loving God’s creation was required for healing (Chidester 2000, 133).  Augustine’s violent enforcement of Christianity set a trend which continued for centuries.

       Julian’s theology, centered as it is on the God’s love as the most critical of God’s traits, results in a more loving and compassionate outcome.  The concluding books of Revelations strongly suggest that St. Julian is motivated to share her visions of an ever-loving God so that her readers may share in her vision and experience a greater love themselves.  Because her work remained in obscurity for centuries one gets the sense the full impact of St. Julian’s work is yet to come.

      This brief reflection demonstrates that while it is possible to agree with the statement “God cannot do what is unfitting for God” the trouble begins when we start to tease out just what would be unfitting for God.  Some people seem focused on the power of God's perfection (and judgment), and others are focused on the power of God's love (and mercy).   It seems the loudest  beleivers are unswerving in their commitment to a wrathful God, and those who perceive a loving God are more often quietly uncertain.  What would the world look like if that were reversed?

Blessings, love and peace,

Shelley

Ministering to Children: Kicking It Up a Notch!

On Saturday November 6th I attended a district-wide Religious Education training with the other members of my team.  It was stimulating and invigorating, but the news was mixed.  The news applies to liberal churches of other faiths, as most are facing the same challenges and the implications are the same.

The bad news first:  Most churches are having a hard time keeping people in their pews and children in their Sunday School classes. Compounding that the traditional model of RE is outdated, and unappealing for both children and adult volunteers.  Most UU’s are adult converts, and most people raised as UU’s don’t come back once they’ve reached adulthood.  If we can’t find a way to keep our children into adulthood, the future looks grim.

There are many reasons for this.  Children and families are overcommitted and depleted and seek activities that are meaningful uses of their time, a fact we have noticed with much wailing and gnashing of teeth in RE these days. Today’s children crave a deeper exploration of how they fit into the universe and how they can make meaningful contributions rather than discussion about the ideas or activities that only scratch the surface. 

So what is the good news?  As I see it, Unitarian Universalism is uniquely poised to re-imagine the purpose of church as well as RE in an age of religious pluralism. Since we have no absolutes to fight against, we need to work on exploring why our faith is relevant.  One way suggested in the RE training is incorporating multigenerational and whole family faith formation alongside our children into our worship practices. 

 Partly this requires a renewed commitment to putting the Seven Principles into practice with our children because they want to apply the Seven Principles in ways that are meaningful to them and explore where they fit into the bigger picture, not just learn about these ideas. There is no roadmap for where we must travel for and with our children in order to assist them in creating meaning for themselves.  Frankly, it’s never happened before and we’re on the cutting edge.

Religious education for UUs is moving towards a vision of “faith formation,” and this affects every member of our congregation.  In order to preserve and grow both our church and Unitarian Universalism we will need to consider how we can cultivate this faith while meeting the needs of our congregants in the modern world.  The needed changes will affect the flavor of our church's activities and will invigorate the life of the congregation and the individuals within it.

Joyce and I, and the other members of the RE Committee would love for you to contribute your thoughts in creating an approach to Religious Education—Faith Formation—that is livelier and more engaging for everyone—including you!

In peace,
Shelley Dennis and Joyce Fetteroll