Hi Friends,
Rev. Eileen is officially on sabbatical for July and August. If you did not see her letter to the editor in the Chicago Tribune on June 23rd about reparations or the article in the RoundTable, please make time to read them. Our congregation was also mentioned in the RoundTable article about the Interfaith Family Pride Fest and being welcoming of the LGBTQ+ communities. It is important that we continue to be outspoken as people grounded in the values of our faith tradition about expanding reparations and inclusivity.
With our congregation’s appearances in the press, there have been opportunities this past month for me to talk about our name change from the Unitarian Church of Evanston (UCE) to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Evanston (UUCE). In sharing the history of how our creedal based Christian denominations of Unitarianism and Universalism merged in 1961 to establish the covenantal based Unitarian Universalist faith tradition, I have found a parallel to the founding of our country and something to celebrate this 4th of July weekend.
When I talk about our congregation’s name change, I share about how the people involved in the 1961 merger, which created the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), made the decision to respect each other’s differing Christian belief systems. The oversimplified version is that the Universalist denomination adhered to a traditional theological belief of the Trinity and the Unitarians adhered to the belief that God is singular and Jesus was human. The Unitarians adhered to a traditional theological belief of hell being part of the afterlife and the Universalists adhered to the belief of universal salvation in heaven. By choosing to remove the requirement for all members of the new faith community to profess belief in one creed or theological belief statement, the founders of the UUA made the bold decision to put the theological beliefs of each member of the community in relationship with each other, embracing a model of a faith tradition grounded in covenant, not creed, which we still adhere to today.
I have struggled this past year to find something celebratory about our country’s 250th anniversary as we continue to face a federal government bent on undoing the democratic ideals of our founders, imposing governmental restrictions on access to health care and food, and funding an expansion of our carceral system. But in the last few weeks, it has been within the context of our faith tradition’s history that I have found what I will be celebrating tomorrow as I watch the 4th of July parades and fireworks. The choice of our faith tradition to ground itself in the ideals of covenant and relationship put the Unitarian Universalist faith tradition on a path to becoming the pluralist faith it is today, a faith in which life-affirming theological beliefs from theist to agnostic to atheist are welcomed, explored, and celebrated. I am not saying that our faith tradition is at the pinnacle of its expression in history, what I’m saying is that the ideals upon which it is founded give us so much potential upon which to continue to build.
So too, the decision of the founders of this country to form a “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” as President Abraham Lincoln described in the Gettysburg Address in 1863, has given our country the ideals grounded in relationship upon which to continue to build. This Independence Day what I am celebrating is the potential of those expressed ideals, which history demonstrates have never been fully realized, but upon which we have the potential to build. Where I find hope in this 250th anniversary of our nation is the potential for our country to address the current threat to those ideals and live into a future in which our country breaks through the status quo of the “melting pot” in which everyone was taught to conform to an extractive capitalist, white patriarchal supremist, heteronormative system and into an era of “tapestry” into which our nation embraces its pluralism and each member of our society, citizen or not, is welcomed, our unique histories explored together, and our intersectional identities celebrated.
And because those ideals from the 1700’s are grounded in the relationships of the people to rule themselves, that potential is ours to grasp and implement. Getting engaged in this year’s mid-term elections in November is pivotal in our effort to reject authoritarianism and preserve our democracy, the coalitions we are establishing locally are vital to any future that we build, and the Beacon of Light gatherings each Thursday from 6-6:30 pm are one way we come together regularly to encourage each other and our neighbors. In all of this, we move forward together as a faith community. You are not alone. Whatever is next for our country, we will be journeying through it together.
Yours in faith,
Rev. Susan
