I have always appreciated our UU motto and campaign “On the Side of Love,” which we have had as a denomination for the last 20 or so years. Our congregations work to build beloved community inside and outside our church walls, even in most challenging and tragic of times.
In our efforts of building beloved community, we can look to Martin Luther King Jr., who popularized the notion of building beloved community—communities that include diversity influenced by love that leads to individual and collective transformation. In this spirit, we love our neighbors as ourselves—the walls of a church becoming more translucent.
In the efforts of building beloved community, as many know, our denomination is considering adding an 8th principle to our long-standing 7 Principles. The proposed 8th Principle is more explicit in holding our growing vision of beloved community.
Our proposed 8th principle states “We covenant to affirm and promote: journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.” The 8th principle invites us to go deeper in transcending boundaries within us and therefore our community.
So, where else can we look at history that provides a lens in where we find ourselves now, as we engage in building beloved community?
I think it’s interesting to reflect on our 1% mark in the religious world. Our denomination has made up approximately 1% of religious affiliation in the United States for almost a century. Many people have wondered why this percentage has not been higher, particularly in more progressive areas of the United States. Many UU studies have been done to address this. Albeit we have grown in numbers, but not proportionally to population or religious affiliations, especially with people of color. Our US population has a growing “spiritual but not religious” demographic, where our congregations might be a good match.
To give some perspective, this is better than many Protestant denominations, where there has been a sharp decline in membership. And then there are the inter-denominational or non-denominational churches in some communities who preach on God’s love and community that have skyrocketed in numbers.
In the ongoing UU studies, it has been suggested that one reason why we have had a continuous 1% affiliation of spiritual seekers is that Unitarians for 100-plus years have not been engaged in active attempts of converting. At the turn of the 20th century and earlier was a time when congregants and ministers were very much involved in converting, and when numbers did substantially increase. Adjustments to extension into communities changed substantially in the early 20th Century and our congregations shrunk or stalled around this time.
In the 21st Century, as people look for spiritual community, sectarian denominational affiliation is becoming less and less important to many. Unitarian Universalists also have not been much for sectarian views, as we embrace blended families of multi-religious belonging, and all the major world religions that have influenced our own faith.
Unitarian Universalists have much to offer those who seek to engage in beloved community, as we share with the world our views of interconnectedness, social justice, and the inherent worth and dignity of every person in expression and extension.
In this regard, I reflect on our recent rich tradition of “Community Ministry.” Community Ministry within our denomination has supported hospice work, food banks, engaging with the homeless, prison work, working with disadvantaged youth, among other outreach efforts. Community Ministry is a great example of how we live out our faith in the world. Congregants and ministers alike are engaged in this work.
Unitarian Universalists Dorothy May Emerson and Anita Farber-Robertson state the importance of our relationality to the broader world in their book entitled Called to Community, when they ask: Do we engage in our communities as an expression of our faith or as an extension of our faith?” They suggest that extension goes beyond expression.
Because of our more recent Unitarian history of eschewing proselytizing, we often do not emphasize “extension.” Can expression and extension equally coincide together?
As in other churches, people come to UU congregations to explore a community engaging in their own spiritual searches. Sometimes a person invites someone in the doors, and there are arguably as many who walk in the doors without being formally invited by someone—maybe they heard by word of mouth, maybe they found out about UUism through a web search. Many UUs don’t want to seem like they are trying to “convert” someone to something, but what if we approached this idea as simply inviting others into beloved community and to engage in their own spiritual search?
To embrace others with love, in the spirit of beloved community, Buddhist traditions encourage us to love ourselves more fully, as we love others. Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh was friends with MLK in the 60s, as both worked to build beloved community.
I am continually inspired by the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh and his teachings on the Buddha’s teaching of “Loving Kindness.” In these teachings we begin with ourselves in acts of love. Hann says:
“[In Loving Kindness meditation] we begin with ourselves to understand our own true nature… Understanding of oneself and others is the key that opens the door of love and acceptance of oneself and others.
[We can say] “May I be able to recognize and touch the seeds of joy and happiness in myself.” The soil of our mind contains many seeds, positive and negative. We are the gardeners who identify, water, and cultivate the best seeds. Touching the seeds of joy, peace, freedom, solidity, and love in ourselves and in each other is an important practice that helps us grow in the direction of health and happiness.So, I invite you to plant the seeds of love for yourselves and let those seeds spread. There is no either/or—we love ourselves, as we simultaneously love others, and the Earth. And as our reading that Rev. Tom just shared states, we can begin with Mother Earth as an example of embodying and spreading love.
Unitarian Universalists have a good record of caring and loving our Earth, and caring and loving others. Whether abolitionist work, suffrage work, animal ministries, or protecting rainforests–UUs have a history of protecting the sanctity of life. The work our congregation is doing on BLM and anti-racist work is arguably the most important work we are doing now as a denomination, at the congregational level, and at an individual level.
Life matters. And the specifics matter—a burned forest near our city, a grandparent who survived or didn’t in Nazi Germany, a Rohingya refugee child starving in Bangladesh, a Mexican child incarcerated at the US border, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd. We care and love other sentient life that suffers. We care for each other, our broader world, the animals, our oceans, the whales, our Earth–Love of all living beings.
We can loudly proclaim this at a wider level!
Prophetic voices speak truth to power—we have an opportunity for each other to be prophetic voices more than we are now, I would argue—to Proselytize Love.
We don’t need to be shy in claiming the word “proselytize.” Maybe “proselytize” is too strong a word for some—but you get the point, right?
The word “proselytize” comes from Latin and Greek which means a new convert or stranger—spreading the good news of why someone wants to join a particular group.
Synonyms for proselytize include advocate, preach, promote, recruit, and yes, convert.
Proselytizing has traditionally meant to convert or attempt to convert someone from one religion, belief, or opinion to another.
Even if we were inclined to proselytize our faith—what would we be proselytizing? Activism, interfaith views, self-inquiry, equality? Yes, yes, yes, and yes, but there is also the good news in love.
If you don’t like the word proselytize, you could use a synonym if you like– maybe “bring into the fold” or “promote” or “proclaim” or “spread”.
We aren’t proselytizing a belief, opinion, or actions that we have that someone else doesn’t. We all have love.
We can proclaim love. We can promote love. We can spread love.
If we are to proselytize and spread love—we have a slogan and campaign “On the Side of Love.” Let’s use it to its fullest—let’s think of ways of how we can embody this slogan of love. What does it feel like to always be on the side of love?
We can proselytize love if we want to increasingly matter to others and the world—not to literally convert, but just simply to proclaim the beauty of love. Again, use whatever word that resonates with you, such as promote or advocate.
I think it is time that we proclaim that it is okay to proselytize love, because there is too much fear, non-belonging, and separation out in our world. It is a noticeably clear word that demonstrates the need for love in all communities
We don’t have exceptions to the rule of love for people of color, people with disabilities, the homeless, our LGBTQ community, immigrants, people of various faiths—we are multi-faith, we celebrate people regardless of abilities or disabilities, we celebrate our LGBTQ siblings, we care for immigrants, we know that Black Lives Matter, we care for the equal rights of every person of color. We honor them and know that we have as much to learn from others to create a dynamic and inviting congregation, as they might learn from us.
We know that in our interconnected world, where we want to build a beloved community, that love for earth is not separate from advocating love and care for ourselves.
If we see community ministry as an example of just simply ministry, there is a possibility more than ever to share our faith with our larger communities—we can all be prophetic voices in our communities—extension, beyond expression.
And if we believe our world is interconnected, that every person deserves equality and justice for all, and if we live out our theology that every person has inherent worth and dignity with the freedom to seek out our own spiritual worth, our congregational walls should not define how we engage or not engage in the world—we fully engage through expression and extension.
We can reclaim the word proselytize, because proselytizing love is nothing to recoil from. We can be louder in proclaiming, supporting, advocating, and preaching love.
And if we believe that what we have to offer the world is equal to what the world has to offer us, we will be more fully on our way to realizing a theology which we always hoped and know it can be, and know it is—Always on the Side of Love…Always.
May It Be So. Blessed Be, and Amen.
Topics: Emergence