Some beliefs are like walled gardens.
They encourage exclusiveness, and the feeling of being especially privileged.

When you leave here today, if you take only one idea with you, I hope it will be that you know that you are in charge of your own faith journey. You’re the boss and the only authority that can determine what you believe. Once you understand that, you’ll have a big part of the essence of Unitarian Universalist doctrine if there is such a thing.

But that statement by itself makes no provision for the beloved community. It must be understood in the context of knowing that no one is ever completely independent of the rest of existence. We are not independent, but interdependent parts of an immense, complex web of existence. We need each other and we need a healthy environment that nourishes our souls.

When I was in seminary I took a class on rites of passage. I’m sure many of you have had the experience of finding one or two gems in a class or workshop, or maybe from a sermon or a book, and carrying them with you for a long, long time. Our professor, Ron Cook, was particularly adept at slipping gems into a class, a prayer, or a conversation. He told us in the class on weddings and funerals that no matter what happened, we should remember two things: "You are enough." And "You are not alone." Those were the gems I carried from the class and they continue to inform almost every aspect of my ministry.

When it comes to matters of faith, you are enough and you are not alone. Those two statements just might be sufficient foundation to construct the rest of our principles and indeed a whole faith system. In fact the seven principles we have covenanted to affirm and promote use one of those statements as each of the bookends for the remaining principles. They progress from the first, which affirms the inherent worth and dignity of every person to the seventh, which acknowledges that we are a part of the interdependent web of all existence. You are enough. You are not alone.

When it comes to faith and belief, we assert that only you can determine what you believe. No one else can tell you what you must believe and an authentic faith has to come from the experiences of your life, your reflections on them, and your own understanding of the holy as you seek to create meaning from your own unique experience.

Dan and I want to challenge you to take that seriously and not to shirk from exploring what it is that you do believe. It can be hard work. It may be compelling, giving you no alternative but to seek your own answers. For most of us who undertake the search, it is fulfilling and exhilarating.

No doubt some of you have been chided for attending a church that lets you believe anything you want — one that trivializes faith by making it too easy a thing. When the teenage son of friends of mine — both deeply religious people, she a Jew and he a Lutheran — learned that I was going to seminary, he quipped that he didn’t think Unitarian Universalists needed seminary since we didn’t believe anything. When Garrison Keillor talks about the Church of the Brunch, I suspect he’s including us among the religious lightweights.

It is true that we have no creed that we require you to affirm as a condition of membership. We have no catechism that provides officially sanctioned answers to the big questions. And in fact, you don’t have to even consider what you believe or how you would answer the central questions of life and death, of good and evil, of sin and salvation, or of cosmology and the source of purpose and order to be a member of our congregation.

But if you take your faith seriously — which I sincerely hope you do — our religion is anything but an easy or trivial pathway. It simply isn’t true that we don’t believe anything, and in any case, those seminary classes I took with Baptist, Episcopalian, and Jesuit faculty were not much about belief, but more about history and tradition, ethics and values, exegesis of texts, and about practical tools for religious leadership. Unitarian Universalist clergy stand in a long tradition of scholarship that reaches forward from Harvard Divinity School and Crane Theological School. The requirements for clergy to obtain fellowship are rigorous and extensive.

Well, then, comes the response, "Maybe you do believe something, but isn’t it true that you can believe anything you want?"

Not at all. You can’t necessarily believe just any old thing that you mightwant to. You can only believe what you do believe, and that’s sometimes not the same thing as what you want to believe. In fact, many of us left mainline churches because we just couldn’t believe their prescribed orthodoxy, despite really, really wanting to believe it.

At the very center of our seven principles is our commitment to a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. It’s free because we don’t put the strictures of a creed on your personal faith. And the freedom of your search must be balanced with the responsibility of conducting it with integrity. You are charged with leading your life in a way that does no unnecessary harm, and does not inhibit the freedom others enjoy. A part of that is the injunction not to believe that you have the final answer or that your truth is the only truth. That would impinge on the freedom of others to believe what their heart leads them to.

It is our lack of creed or common agreed doctrine that makes it difficult for any of us to answer the question, "Just what do UUs believe, anyhow?"

Usually the questioner expects a brief and concise summary of doctrine. Instead, most of us respond with either a list of what we don’t believe in common or a long and confusing explanation about being non-creedal and liberal. The next time you’re asked that question, how about trying, "We believe that every person has the right and the responsibility to determine her or his own beliefs. We don’t have a creed, and we welcome people who have a wide variety of beliefs into our community. It is more important to us to enter into a covenant of mutual regard than to commit to a particular statement of belief."

Most of us can never be content with having gotten a final answer to any of the big questions. We prefer that our answers remain tentative, because we know that paradox and polarities are an essential part of the whole story. Answers that are inflexible don’t admit the evidence that is constantly emerging from our experiences. So we have no real alternative but to engage the search, and for most of us it is a journey to an unknown destination that we do not expect to ever complete.

It is not easy. But it can be very rewarding and even fun, particularly when the quest is conducted within the context of the mutual support of a caring community. You are not alone.

Dan is going to tell you about his experience with a curriculum called Building Your Own Theology. After that I’ll tell you about some opportunities we’re offering this fall for you to engage the search as we begin to envision our congregation as a seminary — a seedbed for nurturing religious values and growing into values-based leadership to serve the world.

We often refer to UU [Unitarian Universalism] as "our religion," but I know that some of us are uncertain as to what that means. We know that people who are members of a faith that worships God belong to a religion; but UUs do not necessarily believe in God. So are we religious, or not?

I like to use a simple definition by Richard Schmidt: religion is "seeking after, and response to, what is experienced as holy." The last part distinguishes religion from a philosophy of life: you do not have religion without something holy ˆ you feel that there is, or at least might be, something of central importance beyond our ordinary experience, something that will always be mysterious. I also like this definition because it makes clear that religion includes not only the "response" to this reality, such as worship, or meditation, or compassionate action, but also being in the mode of seeking it in the first place. We get confused about whether or not UU is a religion because most religions are not comfortable with the idea of seeking; they want you to have faith and act on it.

I think it is important to realize that sincere seeking of what is true and valuable is itself a religious action. Seeking means, of course, thinking about the claims of various religions, and better yet, trying them out by being in contact with their believers, but it can also refer to experiences one has by oneself or with others of nature, art, music, and so forth, that will perhaps put one in contact with something beyond.

The other aspect of religion is that it can involve a response to what is experienced as holy. I think that for many of us, our services are such a "response." But I think they are a "response to the holy" even for those of us who do not think they have experienced "the holy," since the holy can also be experienced through the love found in what we like to call our "beloved community." If we are attuned to the genuine affection and concern of the other people here, we can experience our meeting place as a sacred space and our time together as a sacred time. This isn’t happening for all of us all the time, of course, and so perhaps most of us are still being religious mainly as seekers rather than responders, but I think there is little doubt that many of us are experiencing a sacred reality here, too. I asked to speak today about the Building Your Own Theology program, which various members of UUCV have done on two different occasions, in 1996 and 2000. To me, it is the quintessential UU adult program, because it plays the most to our identity as spiritual seekers. It is a program designed to give people the right environment to examine their existing beliefs and place them in dialogue with those of others.

First of all, though, what is theology? The word seems to imply the existence of a theos, or god. That is why, for instance, Buddhists and Taoists and some others have hesitated to say that they have one; so we generally hear about Buddhist or Taoist "philosophy" instead. Lately this has changed, and I’ve been seeing books about Buddhist theology. The authors state that "theology" is widely understood to be what you do in a religion to make sense out of your experience, and there certainly is such an effort in these religions, too. This all fits nicely with what I’ve long liked as a definition of theology, by Rudolph Bultmann: theology is "faith’s self-understanding." Whatever is the object of your faith, based on your experiences, you need to come to an understanding of it. This might include a conviction that there is no God and how the universe exists anyway!

So, just as some of us have come around to understanding that even if we are doubtful about God, we can use the word worship to describe what we do here Sunday morning, and can say that we do it in a church, I think we can also adopt the word theology to describe our thinking about what it is that we believe.

BYOT was first put together by Richard Gilbert, minister of the First Unitarian Church of Rochester, New York in the 1970’s. It was published by the UUA and used in hundreds of congregations across the country; in 1983, Rev. Gilbert revised it and added a second part that had more to do with ethical explorations.

This is how he described its purpose: "to create a community context in which individuals can create their own credos."

There are two notable aspects of this statement. The first is that there is a "community context" ˆ there are people working together. It may seem unnecessary to work with others on what is essentially a highly personal endeavor. But it is, in fact, quite rare for any of us to arrive at convictions by ourselves. As the anthropologist Clifford Geertz observed, "It’s not that people go to church because they believe; they believe because they go to church." People do not generally arrive as beliefs and then seek out the religion that matches them; rather, they grow up in a church, or they visit one, and over time they acquire convictions. When we hear words from the pulpit with which we resonate, and we feel ourselves among people whose feelings we share and whom we feel we can trust, we feel at our core that we really know something to be true.

The other interesting aspect of the statement is that we create our own credos. A credo literally means a belief; but the word also is a compound from cor, "heart," and therefore credo in the richer sense means not just something I believe intellectually, but something that comes from my heart, that involves my will. The questions one ponders in BYOT are not just conceptual, but highly personal and emotional.

Our first BYOT group was started in 1996 at the suggestion of Jan Ruby, who knew Rev. Gilbert from Rochester, I think. There were about a dozen of us at first, but most of our meetings were attended by about half a dozen people. We began with the BYOT workbook, which has guidelines for ten group sessions. In successive weeks, we were to write our own spiritual autobiographies; talk about experiences we had which were, or might be called, religious; discuss our conceptions of human nature; define what we think is the ultimate reality, whether we call it god or something else; look together at the history of UU; try to elucidate our ethical principles; evaluate our attitudes about death, aging, and so forth; write our credos; and consider what "imperatives," or courses of action, seemed to be necessitated by our credos. The sorts of questions we addressed are summarized in the insert in today’s Order of Service. We thought that you might like to take them home and ponder them.

Each of these sessions was to take a week, but we were meeting only once a month and in any case found that it was impossible to rush quickly through the second part, the spiritual autobiography. Our group consisted of people who had been around the block quite a few times in their spiritual search, and sometimes we spent an entire hour just with one person’s story, which was fascinating. It took at least six months to get to the third session!

This was important, however, as we needed to know and trust one another to get to the next part. When we began to try to talk about what we thought really existed "out there," we were prepared to start to ask "why do you think that?" Most of the time, we accept other people’s beliefs without question: different strokes for different folks, right? But our understanding for BYOT was that we would dig deeper, question, even debate. As Socrates is supposed to have said, "The unexamined life is not worth living" and we felt that all beliefs should be tested.

We started with our own backgrounds. We considered how we had encountered religion and who had influenced us. We thought about whom we had accepted or rejected as an authority and considered whether we had been justified in those decisions. We thought about our assumptions about whom we could now learn from reliably. Many of us realized that we had rejected the religions of our youths because of particular persons who acted unethically or pushed us too hard or were otherwise difficult. We realized that while we had never really embraced the theology of those religions that we had never really engaged them seriously; rather, we had made our moves on the grounds of personality.

We thought about what religion is and realized that we had been operating on some assumptions that weren’t necessarily true, such as that religion required absolute faith, in other words, that it brooked no doubt; that it required belief in God; that it was necessary to do what authority figures told you to do; and so forth. We talked honestly about our attitudes towards religion. Some of us felt that religion had been really a rather cynical attempt to get human beings to toe the line and obey authority. Some of us felt that religion acted as a crutch, providing a benevolent father figure for people who didn’t have one.

We had conversations on many other points and I won’t go into them all now. The main point is that the conversations of BYOT introduced us to new ideas. They challenged our presuppositions. They revealed some of our hidden prejudices. They showedus that we had beliefs, even if we thought we didn’t. They revealed that many of our beliefs were at best half-baked.

BYOT is a bit out of date now, and in my opinion some of the readings and questions really need revision. There are many ways to accomplish the purpose that it served, and I’m not up here trying to endorse BYOT specifically. I do believe, however, that BYOT represents something truly excellent about Unitarian Universalism and I think that every one of us could benefit from doing it or something like it at different points in our lives together in this congregation.

One of Judy’s and my goals for the coming year is to develop and expand programs that have an intentional learning component. We have embraced the idea that the congregation might serve as a seminary — a seed bed, a place to nurture germinating ideas.

We encourage you to explore values and develop a personal theology. We offer resources to aid your search. We hope the congregation will provide a context to practice leadership. We want you to learn to be an effective change agent. And we hope that you’ll take your values and your leadership skills into the world through your workplace or volunteer activities and use them to transform lives and to make the world a better place.

Our Religious Education Committee has expanded its charter to include not only our children’s programs, but also our education programs for youth and adults. It’s become a Lifespan Religious Education Committee.

At a recent planning retreat, three goals were developed to help guide our religious education efforts. First, we want every person to know that she or he is held in love. Second, we want every person to recognize that he or she has the power to change the world. And third, we want every person to know that she or he has a responsibility to use that power to bring more love to the world, acting with integrity and responsibly to make it a better place.

We will start a Small Group Ministry program in September. Six facilitators have already begun training to lead monthly meetings of small groups, and they have committed to ongoing support of one another. Each meeting of these groups will have a particular topic and it is our hope that the groups will have exactly the kind of intimate conversations about important matters of the soul and spirit that Dan experienced in the BYOT course.

You’ll hear more about the program in our service on September 2 and if you are eager to know more before then, there are information pamphlets in the Social Hall. We’ll be accepting enrollments for the initial groups until September 9.

We offer several other opportunities to explore your own beliefs and to learn more about Unitarian Universalism in a small group context or on your own.

An Inquirers’ Class is held three times a year on two Saturday mornings. These sessions are designed to help people who may be considering membership to discern whether or not they are ready to join the congregation. They include more detailed information about the congregation, a quick romp through our rich historic tradition, and suggestions for getting the most out of membership. They offer an opportunity to get to know each other and to start forming what we hope may become lasting relationships. The next time we’ll offer this class will be on October 20 and November 3.

Our Worship Associates program gives lay leaders the opportunity to work with the ministers in presenting worship over a period of a year. We have asked members of the group that has just started their one-year term to develop specific learning goals and to take time during the year for reflection on their experience and to evaluate the progress toward their individual learning goals.

This fall and winter we will offer occasional adult religious education classes. Most likely these will be one- or two-sessionclasses. Just before Hallowe’en Judy will collaborate with Laurel Belding to present a mask-making workshop, for example. Watch the newsletter for more information.

If you’re more inclined to individual study and reflection, the congregation has a small lending library of materials that are mostly about Unitarian Universalism, and the UUA Bookstore offers a good selection of books.

The congregation’s website, uucv.net, has a link to the UUA website, which has literally thousands of pages of materials, including the Bookstore catalog and many additional links.

The insert on blue paper in today’s order of service offers some questions for reflection and journal writing to help you get started on the search. These are adapted from the BYOT curriculum and from a class in religion that Dan offers at Dickinson College.

However you engage the search, remember that you are ultimately the only authority in matters of faith. You are enough. And you are not alone.

What has been my experience with religion? Begin with things important to you that do not seem necessarily to have to do with religion but that helped form you: places and people, experiences, communities (neighborhoods, schools, groups of friends, organizations to which you belonged), decisions you have made. Then, what experiences have you had that were, or might be called, "religious"? What made them "religious"? How does your identification of them imply a definition of religion?

What have been the sources for my understanding of religion? How important have been the influences of parents, friends, religious school, independent reading, classes in school, college, etc.? How reliable are these sources? Which is better as a source for what religion really is: the sacred texts of a tradition; a religious official (e.g., priest, rabbi, minister); a theologian; a religious person untrained in theology; an academic in a religion department; a historian; an anthropologist; a psychologist? What does your answer imply about your possible prejudices?

What is my understanding of human nature? In the following pairs of opposites, what do you think is truer to human nature? It may help in each case to put these words at the right and left margins of a page, draw a line between them, and then make a dot at the point you think reflects human reality. FREEDOM / FATE: do we really "make" ourselves, or is that happens to us mainly a matter of fate? ENVIRONMENT / GENES: are we determined by our environment, including people and events, or are we determined by our genetic heritage? GOOD / EVIL: are we naturally good, albeit corruptible, or are we naturally bad, requiring all the forces of socialization to control our impulses? ANIMAL / SPIRITUAL: is our true nature primarily animal or primarily spiritual?

What is my understanding of Ultimate Reality / God? Do you think there is an Ultimate Reality? Is this Ultimate Reality is supernatural or natural? Benign, indifferent, or malign? Does it have a "will"? Is it personal, supra-personal, or impersonal? Do you have communication with it? If so, how? How does this reality relate to you? How does it function in your life? What name or symbol do you give to it?

Think about these statements and whether or not you would endorse them: "God is a supernatural being who reveals him/her/itself in human history"; "God is the ground of all being, real but not adequately describable"; "God’ may appropriately be used as a name for some natural process within the universe, such as love or creative evolution"; "God is an irrelevant concept; the focus in religion should be on human knowledge and values"; "God is a harmful concept."

What are my feelings about other people and their religions? Do you agree with any of these statements? "Religion is an inevitable phenomenon in human existence. No one can be truly irreligious because everyone in their heart of hearts senses an ultimate reality." "Religion is primarily a response to the psychological need for order, identity, and protection from chaos." "All religions are essentially the same, although the forms are different due to historical and cultural factors." "Religion is primarily a means of social control. Societies need the order imposed by moral strictures and religions provide the rationalization for those moral norms." "Religion is fundamentally a belief in magic and superstition."

What are my feelings about my own objectivity? Which of these statements best fits? "I think that as a non-believer I can be more objective about the evaluation of religion." "I think that one has to have personal religious experience in order to understand religion."

What are my motivations for thinking about religion? Are you a "hunter" or a "sage"? "Hunters" are bold, impassioned sorts who seek with the heart. They want to know the truth but to have emotional experience. They want to know what others are feeling. To use the hunting metaphor, they want to know what it is like to be a bear or deer. They feel that it is inadequate, perhaps impossible, to seek truth just with the head. "Sages" are people who distrust their hearts. They seek truth with their heads. They want to be with others to see if someone can say something that makes sense. They are uncomfortable with rituals, music, and the other trappings of worship services.