What is the Free Pulpit?

Yesterday as I was reading Susan LaMar’s essay, “Unitarian Universalist Ordination–A Search for Meaning” I encountered a few concepts I needed to know more about as I move more seriously toward UU ministry.  I began this series of posts with an exploration of Socinianism.

Today’s concept is also from LaMar’s essay:  the Free Pulpit.   I’ve heard the term periodically, but have never taken the time to explore what it means.

Here’s one preacher’s take on the Free Pulpit (and the Free Pew):

There are two time honored institutions in Unitarian Universalist churches that are, or should be, guarded by clergy and laity as if they were the Holy Grail. They are the free pulpit and the free pew. Succinctly stated, the free pulpit means that when a congregation lends its pulpit to a minister by calling that minister as its spiritual leader, the congregation pledges complete and unencumbered freedom of speech to say anything from that pulpit that he or she believes to be true. But that freedom is not something the preacher is born with, but originates in the bond of affection, the covenant established between the congregation and the minister. The free pew means that when a Unitarian Universalist congregation is gathered by a bond of affection, a covenant that makes it into a spiritual community, the most sacred agreement made is that no theological test will be given for membership in that congregation. That freedom is not the freedom an infant is born with, but originates in a bond of affection, which is the reason we Christen our newborns. Everything else in any of our churches might be unique to that particular congregation, yet all provide and protect the Free Pulpit and the Free Pew as Unitarian Universalists. The bonds of love keep open the gates of freedom.

The UUA’s website says this:  ”The free pulpit is a long-standing tradition within Unitarian Universalism, in that we allow our ministers to speak their minds rather than be restricted by a particular tenet or creed.”

As I look back on my time as a Presbyterian minister, I do remember that there were limits on my freedom as a preacher.  There were things one simply did not say.  A preacher who consistently strayed beyond the borders of orthodoxy might find herself in a bit of trouble–or a lot of trouble.

When I was ordained, I was asked, “Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?”  As a minister, I was expected to honor my affirmative answer to this question by adhering to Scripture and to the confessional documents of our church.

Being a UU, and particularly a UU minister, is a whole different kettle of fish.  In this tradition, I am free to go wherever the search for truth may lead, and to preach about where that quest has taken me.  There is no predetermined document that says, “This far and no farther.”  I cannot be excommunicated or defrocked for heterodoxy.

This is a beautiful concept, but the skeptic in me wonders how it works in practice.  Surely, when the “bonds of affection” are weakened, or even broken, it is tempting for a congregation to seize control of the pulpit, or for a preacher to impose limits on the pew.

What is Socinianism?

This is the first of what I hope will be a series of short posts about questions that arise from teaching myself about the history, theology and polity of Unitarian Universalism.

I’ve run into the word “Socinian” a few times lately.  The first time was in a list of questions the Ministerial Fellowship Committee might ask, so that upped my adrenaline a bit.  The word rang a very distant bell–I could see the word in my mind’s eye on a chart I studied in seminary, could hear the word said by a Church History professor.  Seemed to me that in the context of my previous training, Socinianism was a heresy, but I couldn’t pull up anything more specific than that.

Since I’m not trying to become an expert on the subject, but rather just to get a ballpark idea of what we’re talking about, the following is based on the Wikipedia entry for Socinianism.

Turns out I was right.  Socinianism is a heresy, which makes it right at home among the UUs.  (Yes, I’m being flip.)

Socinianism takes its name from Lelio Sozzini and his nephew, Fausto Sozzini, who lived basically during the time period of the Protestant Reformation.  While reformers such as Luther and Calvin changed a great deal about the Christian faith (they would have said that they returned it to its origins), their “crimes” against the church did not strike the core principles of the Christian faith as deeply as those of “heretics” such as the Sozzinis.

I remember trying to wrap my mind around three, yet one, one, yet three while I was in seminary.  We had to memorize long, highly technical Greek words, differentiated from each other by a single vowel.  There were flighty metaphors about the persons of the Trinity dancing with each other.  It was a lot of work, all in the service of defending formulas articulated long ago at Nicaea and Chalcedon.

It seems to me that Lelio and Fausto, let the range of their minds take them beyond the bounds of orthodoxy, unlike their friend Calvin and the other Reformers.  Like their spiritual ancestor, Arius, they realized that everything was much simpler if Jesus were not divine.

If I were to remember one piece of this for talking with the MFC, it would be the distinctive Christology of Socinianism.  In its view, Christ did not exist prior to his birth.  He is not co-eternal with the Father, and not divine, but an object of reverence nonetheless.

Grateful for Serendipity

Second-Act Aces – Opinionator Blog – NYTimes.com.

I’m posting this link to Timothy Egan’s column in the NYT today, grateful for the timing of its appearance.

I’ve spent today with six years of paperwork spread out on the massage table that doubles as an extra horizontal surface in our condo.

Six years of correspondence with the UUA’s Ministerial Credentialing Office.  Six years of status reports and required forms.  CPE evaluations.  Psych evals.  Life and vocation examined, and examined again.  A winding road that has begun to feel like a tightly-wound spiral staircase.  Commitment and despair, chasing each other’s tail.

Today was about commitment.  About asking for the help that will propel me forward.  About clarity, and the courage to see in myself the minister everyone else sees.

So I’m thankful for this celebration of second acts.  Here’s to believing that the promise I showed as a young Presbyterian minister will be fulfilled in greater depth and maturity as a 40-something UU minister, and beyond.

Seeds Fall in My Mind

Last week, the Rev. Christine Robinson of iMinister wrote about a movie she’d seen a few years ago, Into the Great Silence.  She used the film’s story as a metaphor for exploring the thirtieth anniversary of her ordination.

Two things about her post caught my attention.

• I was glad to hear that someone can say, after thirty years in the messy business of ministry, that it has been worth it.
• I recognized in the post something about a writer’s need to capture experience.

Something happens, and writers hear, “I have to write about that!”  We make a mental note–or, if we’re really good, we actually write it down.  If we’ve cultivated a practice of writing, the note might actually turn into a blog post, essay, poem, or even a novel.

But sometimes the process is much less direct.  Sometimes we experience something without knowing we will want to write about it.  It is only and after years of thinking and talking about it that we finally hear the words, “I have to write about that!”

Seeds fall in our minds, and some germinate quickly.  Others need several winters before they send up their first green shoots.

Melatonin Dreams

Yesterday began at 7:15 a.m. in Bridgeport, Michigan.  It dawdled for a while in the sun on the back deck, soaking in the rays and the last few hours with family.  Then a straight shot down to Detroit Metro, a small hop from there to O’Hare, and the long haul from Chicago to Anchorage.  After an hour-long, story-sharing ride with a good friend, our travels brought us back to Girdwood, to the place we call home.  We were asleep by 12:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m. in MI), aided by melatonin in my case.

I am not usually a lucid dreamer.  But this morning when I became aware that I was dreaming, I chose to awaken.

I had been asked to speak at the University of Michigan commencement, scheduled to begin in 30 minutes.  I can still see the clock, which read 1:30 p.m.  I had just a few paragraphs written, and was typing furiously.

When I worked as a minister, many Saturday nights I had “sermon nightmares.” Often I had left my sermon text or notes in my office, and I was now sitting in the chancel–or worse, standing in the pulpit.  Most of the dream was usually an anxious effort to retrieve the text or notes by slipping out during a hymn, or choosing instead to wing it.

This morning’s dream was different, in one important way:  I remember pieces the speech I was writing, and I like what I remember.  After the requisite introductions, welcomes and thank-you’s, there were two things I had to say.

We live in a time, I wrote, when:

• Vocation isn’t a straight line.  My partner graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in anthropology. Now she is Alaska’s first and only paraplegic aircraft mechanic.  My undergraduate degree is in psychology, and I have a Master of Divinity degree, but my driving passions are sustainable food and agriculture.
• Every person matters.  You may be an unemployed former Presbyterian minister whose daily tasks include feeding an airplane mechanic and walking the dog, and still the University of Michigan will ask you to speak at graduation.

I believe these two things.  I believe that whatever I find myself doing in five years, whether it be in the pulpit, the kitchen, or the barn, every swooping detour of my life will have been important.  And I believe each one of us influences this organic, interdependent world in which we live; a few weeks back something I posted here prompted a fellow blogger to take the leap and buy a new range, which will have innumerable repercussions in her life–to say nothing of the surprising actions it might prompt in her readers.  We may not be asked to speak at graduation, but we matter.

Whew.  What an intense way to start the day.  Now that I’ve written it out of my system, I can take a deep breath, look around, and begin to acclimate back to life here in Girdwood.