A Homily

Delivered by the Rev. Thomas Schmidt

TJ District South Cluster Articulating Our Faith Conference

November 3, 2007

We are here today to explore some of the ways that we articulate our faith as Unitarian Universalists.  But, what is it?  What is this thing we call faith?  Why is it important? Is it important?  Author Sam Harris, in his book “End of Faith” defined it as  “little more than the shadow cast by hope for a better life beyond the grave.”  While I do tend to agree with Harris on many points,  I find that he and other authors, such Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, tend to oversimplify the religious impulse, judging all religions by the words and actions of what I find to be the worst examples of what it means to be religious. And they tend to use such words as faith, belief, and religion interchangeably.  And it is not their fault, per se, because that is how the words are generally used in our culture. Generally speaking, I find what Harris, and Hitchens, and Dawkins are railing against is not faith, but rather the propensity for holding on to irrational beliefs in spite of imponderable evidence to the contrary. For many, this is the definition of faith, but really that is nothing more than wishful thinking.

A belief, essentially, is any “idea” we choose to be true whether it be because of the evidence or in spite of the evidence, it can be rational or irrational. The vast majority of our beliefs were attained in childhood, long before the ability to rationally evaluate them was developed.  And these beliefs span the the spectrum of human experience from the nature of good and evil to the best way to cook a Thanksgiving turkey.   It is from our beliefs that we interpret the events of our lives. Acting as a lens, our beliefs tend to color our perceptions to coincide with what we have chosen to believe.  Relating what we have been taught to our own experiences is a fundamental element of the religious life in my opinion, because, we can hardly call a belief our own if we haven’t even made the effort to match it with our own life experiences.

But faith, on the other hand, is more than mere belief.  Faith is grounded not in the certainty of our beliefs, but in our doubts.  It is easy to profess a belief in the comfort of our homes, the safety of a religious community where everybody tends to believe the same thing.  However, it is much  more difficult to integrate our beliefs into our daily life, and that is where faith comes in.  Faith is belief tempered by doubt and real world testing.  As we attempt to integrate our beliefs into our lives, they are tested,  challenged, and doubts  inevitably arise.  A belief that cannot stand up to such rigorous testing is really not worth holding on to.  As Unitarian Universalists, we generally do not share common beliefs.  What we do share is a common commitment to faithful living, to putting our beliefs, whatever they may be, into action. 

Our congregations are formed around a set of common principles rather than beliefs, and that is atypical in Western religion.  Thus, when we are asked with what Unitarian Universalists believe, we are left with nothing to say, and that tends to leave us feeling frustrated and even  at times a tad inferior.  The flaw, however, is not in us or in our tradition.  The flaw is in the question.  The more accurate question for Unitarian Universalist, is “In what do Unitarian Universalist put their faith?”  or put another way,  “In what do Unitarian Univesalist commit their time and resources?”  And it is the pursuit of articulating answers to those questions that brings us here this morning.