Ruth Rodgers
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2018 Sermons: see below
Click here for 2019 Sermons Earlier sermons through 2016: Summaries are in the newsletters. Thank you to Ruth Rodgers for sermon summaries. |
December 30, 2018:
The transition from "shoe leather" (door-to-door) campaigns to broadcast and narrowcast technology (television, radio and Internet) has played a critical role in every aspect of political campaigns. These effects include who runs, who wins, campaign strategy, what and how much we learn about candidates, voting behavior and governance. The implications of these changes will be central to the discussion and presentation. On the last Sunday of 2018, guest speaker Dr. Terri Fine, professor of Political Science at UCF, talked about how modern technology has affected politics and election results. Because of the 1st Amendment, political speech is constitutionally protected, and the rise of technology over the past half century or so has given more and more people a platform to express their political opinions. This opening up of divergent views would seem to be a good thing, but there are some flaws in the system we must consider. The use of technology in our political process can be traced back to 1952, to the first television campaign commercial, “We like Ike!” Before that date, we had Woodrow Wilson’s introduction of press conferences and Franklin Roosevelt’s Fireside chats on the radio, and, but the use of TV for political advertising marked a major change in how campaigns were run. Because the general public’s interest in politics peaks in election years, and especially in the last few months and weeks before voting day, these ads could attract the attention of a huge swath of the population. Unlike previous campaigns, where candidates and their volunteers went door to door, handing out brochures and interacting with voters, this new technology did not allow viewers to ask questions or talk back. All they were left with was a catchy tag line that echoed in their heads and could have real influence over their voting preferences. Another drawback to the use of technology in elections is that before candidates appeared on TV, voters made their choices based on their party affiliation or on the candidates’ qualifications and experience. However, in 1960, when the first debates were broadcast on TV of the two presidential candidates, people listening on the radio felt that Nixon won the debates whereas those watching on TV came to the opposite conclusion, that Kennedy won. This difference in perception was largely due to the way the two men appeared on TV. Nixon, who was ill and who had used makeup to cover his 5 o’clock shadow, could clearly be seen to be sweating, causing his makeup to drip, whereas Kennedy appeared much more attractive and confident. These visual perceptions have played a role ever since in how voters perceive candidates, along with the 30-second sound bites that have become a major part of modern campaigning. These sound bites, which may be catchy and memorable, provide almost no real information, and have become shorter and shorter, so that they are now down to about 5 seconds. The biggest problem with the use of technology in elections is money and the uneven playing field it creates. Walking door to door by the candidate or his volunteers, handing out brochures, requires little money, but TV ads are much more expensive, meaning that many people who have the desire, qualifications, and experience to be good candidates are shut out of the race due to their lack of financial resources to run a successful campaign. Instead of technology enlarging the playing field, it has shrunk it. Fine brought up the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision that PACS (political action committees), although prohibited from giving unlimited amounts directly to candidates, can spend as much as they want on behalf of getting the candidate of their choice elected, thus making money an even more important factor in conducting a national campaign, freezing out some candidates and elevating others. Although TV ads require transparency in the form of at least a 4-second acknowledgment of who is sponsoring a commercial, sometimes it can be hard to track down the sponsors’ true agenda. As voters, we must be vigilant in using our intellect and powers of reasoning to vote for the best candidate, regardless of whatever influences are being used by advertisers, but sadly, too often, the best candidates are shut out before the elections even begin by lack of money to wage a modern-day campaign that is dominated by high technology. …rr Photo used under Creative Commons from NCDOTcommunications |
Dr. Terri Fine, Ph.D.
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December 23:
Join us as we make merry by singing carols, many written by Unitarian Universalists, and by sharing a story or two to lift our spirits.
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On the Sunday before Christmas, our minister, the Reverend Amy Kindred, and the Friendship Fellowship choir, led by music director Stephen Downen, presented a beautiful Christmas program of music and readings in celebration of the season. Amy Rosebush, our pianist, provided accompaniment, and special guest flutist Staci Cleveland performed some special numbers.
After opening with “Christmas Time is Here,” performed by Staci Cleveland and the choir, the service was interspersed with readings and music, including familiar carols such as “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” and “Silent Night,” along with solos by Stephen Downen (“Sleep My Child”) and a flute solo by Staci Cleveland (“II Este Ne”) and “Winter Solstice” by the choir.
The first reading, “Holidays and Holy Days,” included the Biblical account of the shepherds being visited by angels in the fields. It is a lovely story, filled with calmness and peace, said author Lynn Unger, but one has to wonder how such an event would really go—sheep bleating, dogs barking, dumbfounded shepherds trying to make sense of such an unusual event, confused about what was happening or where they were supposed to go.
The second reading, “A Cautionary Tale,” by Frank Rivals, described how he wrapped up a piece of coal one Christmas for his younger sister, whom he considered the most obnoxious child on the planet. What he did not know is that only a week earlier in her kindergarten class she had been taught how to grow crystals on chunks of coal, and to his utter dismay and astonishment, his cruel joke backfired on him, for when she unwrapped the present and found the coal, she was absolutely delighted. It was her favorite gift that Christmas.
In the third reading, “Ding-a-Ling,” author Kaaren Solveig Anderson wrote about volunteering one Christmas season to man a Salvation Army collection kettle. On her first assignment she enthusiastically rang her bell on a busy street corner in ten-degree weather and was rewarded not only by the donations but by the smiles and “Happy Holidays” wishes she received, with one couple even bringing her some hot coffee. Her second assignment was inside a mall, where the mall owners had decreed that no bells could be rung. Instead, she was given a long dowel with two pieces of paper stapled together and attached, one side reading “Ding” and the other side “Dong” that she was to flip back and forth. It seemed absurd, but she did as she was asked, and soon she noticed that people were laughing and smirking as they passed. After flipping the sign for hours, she was ten minutes away from the end of her shift when a man in cowboy boots and hat walked up to her and began to chuckle. As he watched, he bent over in hysterical laughter, not able to stop. Finally, he reached into his wallet and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill, rewarding her for the best chuckle he’d ever had. She then twirled her sign more enthusiastically, proud that the sign had brought some humor to the hectic busyness of the season. (Rev. Amy made and brought in her own sign to illustrate the story, and twirled it for us most effectively!)
The final reading, about the Winter Solstice celebration which was observed long before the birth of Jesus and the rise of Christianity, showed how many of our Christmas traditions had their origin in this ancient festival. The Yule log, mistletoe, the use of holly, ivy, and other greenery as decorations, and the tradition of going caroling or “wassailing” to drive away troubling spirits are all carryovers from those ancient festivals that marked the shortest day of the year and celebrated the return of longer days. …rr Photo used under Creative Commons from Joakim Berndes
Join us as we make merry by singing carols, many written by Unitarian Universalists, and by sharing a story or two to lift our spirits.
-------------------------------------------
On the Sunday before Christmas, our minister, the Reverend Amy Kindred, and the Friendship Fellowship choir, led by music director Stephen Downen, presented a beautiful Christmas program of music and readings in celebration of the season. Amy Rosebush, our pianist, provided accompaniment, and special guest flutist Staci Cleveland performed some special numbers.
After opening with “Christmas Time is Here,” performed by Staci Cleveland and the choir, the service was interspersed with readings and music, including familiar carols such as “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” and “Silent Night,” along with solos by Stephen Downen (“Sleep My Child”) and a flute solo by Staci Cleveland (“II Este Ne”) and “Winter Solstice” by the choir.
The first reading, “Holidays and Holy Days,” included the Biblical account of the shepherds being visited by angels in the fields. It is a lovely story, filled with calmness and peace, said author Lynn Unger, but one has to wonder how such an event would really go—sheep bleating, dogs barking, dumbfounded shepherds trying to make sense of such an unusual event, confused about what was happening or where they were supposed to go.
The second reading, “A Cautionary Tale,” by Frank Rivals, described how he wrapped up a piece of coal one Christmas for his younger sister, whom he considered the most obnoxious child on the planet. What he did not know is that only a week earlier in her kindergarten class she had been taught how to grow crystals on chunks of coal, and to his utter dismay and astonishment, his cruel joke backfired on him, for when she unwrapped the present and found the coal, she was absolutely delighted. It was her favorite gift that Christmas.
In the third reading, “Ding-a-Ling,” author Kaaren Solveig Anderson wrote about volunteering one Christmas season to man a Salvation Army collection kettle. On her first assignment she enthusiastically rang her bell on a busy street corner in ten-degree weather and was rewarded not only by the donations but by the smiles and “Happy Holidays” wishes she received, with one couple even bringing her some hot coffee. Her second assignment was inside a mall, where the mall owners had decreed that no bells could be rung. Instead, she was given a long dowel with two pieces of paper stapled together and attached, one side reading “Ding” and the other side “Dong” that she was to flip back and forth. It seemed absurd, but she did as she was asked, and soon she noticed that people were laughing and smirking as they passed. After flipping the sign for hours, she was ten minutes away from the end of her shift when a man in cowboy boots and hat walked up to her and began to chuckle. As he watched, he bent over in hysterical laughter, not able to stop. Finally, he reached into his wallet and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill, rewarding her for the best chuckle he’d ever had. She then twirled her sign more enthusiastically, proud that the sign had brought some humor to the hectic busyness of the season. (Rev. Amy made and brought in her own sign to illustrate the story, and twirled it for us most effectively!)
The final reading, about the Winter Solstice celebration which was observed long before the birth of Jesus and the rise of Christianity, showed how many of our Christmas traditions had their origin in this ancient festival. The Yule log, mistletoe, the use of holly, ivy, and other greenery as decorations, and the tradition of going caroling or “wassailing” to drive away troubling spirits are all carryovers from those ancient festivals that marked the shortest day of the year and celebrated the return of longer days. …rr Photo used under Creative Commons from Joakim Berndes
December 16:
The season of evergreens, tinsel and carols has arrived. Amidst a barrage of messages from a culture of mass consumerism, let's pause to explore life's most meaningful gifts. Perhaps we'll find the wisdom in Emerson's words when he stated, "The only gift is a portion of thyself."
The Reverend Amy Kindred began her sermon on gifts with a story from the North Pacific tribes of native Americans, who believed that all animals lived in tribes, like themselves, and that the salmon had a huge lodge beneath the sea where they went about in human form. Once a year, they would change into fish bodies and sacrifice themselves so that their land brothers might have food for the winter. The first salmon to appear was given an elaborate welcome, and after a ceremony with speeches and singing, everyone was given a piece of the fish to eat. Then the bones of the fish were returned to the sea intact so that the salmon would return the following year. This return of the bones was a gift to nature as a way of showing gratitude for the salmon’s sacrifice. It has to do with honor, hospitality, and the native American understanding that one doesn’t own anything except the responsibility to provide for another.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, a 19th century Unitarian minister and renowned speaker, wrote about gifts in some of his essays. Saying “He is a good man who can receive a gift well,” he explains that he does not find it fitting to rejoice or grieve over a gift. If he does not like the gift, he knows the giver doesn’t know him well, and if he likes the gift too much, the donor might be able to read his heart and know that he likes the gift more than he likes the giver.
Emerson left the pulpit over his discomfort with some of the church practices, such as communion, but he continued to attend Unitarian services and often wrote his opinions of the minister’s sermons, which were then published in the local newspaper. One of the failings of ministers that he noted was the lack of any personal talk from them, so that he got no sense of the man himself.
Rev. Amy, then emulating Emerson’s call for personal anecdotes, told about having lunch with her mother a few years ago in a café that was about halfway between where she lived and where her mother lived. After a long visit with her mother in the café, on the drive home she realized that she had forgotten to tip the waitress, who had given them good service and left them alone to visit. She felt terrible about her forgetfulness, so when she got home, she called the restaurant, described the waitress, and got her name. Then she sent her a card and a small amount of cash in care of the café to express her gratitude. Two weeks later she received a “Thank You” from the server and was so touched that she cried. She had not expected anything in return, yet this stranger had reached out to her and given her a gift.
She expressed a wish for all of us, at this time of year, to give the most valuable gift we can offer, the gift of time, of friendship, of honesty, of just sitting with someone in conversation or in silence, if need be. We should all take the opportunity to look someone in the eye, smile, and say, “It’s good to be with you” or to touch the shoulder of someone hurting and comfort them. Another gift that we can give others is stories. All of us have stories inside that we can share. Many of us, as adults, wish we had listened to more stories from our grandparents before it was too late.
She ended with another quote from Emerson: “The only gift is a portion of thyself…Therefore, the poet brings his poem; the shepherd his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing,” and then closed with a prayer of gratefulness. …rr Photo used under Creative Commons from verchmarco
The season of evergreens, tinsel and carols has arrived. Amidst a barrage of messages from a culture of mass consumerism, let's pause to explore life's most meaningful gifts. Perhaps we'll find the wisdom in Emerson's words when he stated, "The only gift is a portion of thyself."
The Reverend Amy Kindred began her sermon on gifts with a story from the North Pacific tribes of native Americans, who believed that all animals lived in tribes, like themselves, and that the salmon had a huge lodge beneath the sea where they went about in human form. Once a year, they would change into fish bodies and sacrifice themselves so that their land brothers might have food for the winter. The first salmon to appear was given an elaborate welcome, and after a ceremony with speeches and singing, everyone was given a piece of the fish to eat. Then the bones of the fish were returned to the sea intact so that the salmon would return the following year. This return of the bones was a gift to nature as a way of showing gratitude for the salmon’s sacrifice. It has to do with honor, hospitality, and the native American understanding that one doesn’t own anything except the responsibility to provide for another.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, a 19th century Unitarian minister and renowned speaker, wrote about gifts in some of his essays. Saying “He is a good man who can receive a gift well,” he explains that he does not find it fitting to rejoice or grieve over a gift. If he does not like the gift, he knows the giver doesn’t know him well, and if he likes the gift too much, the donor might be able to read his heart and know that he likes the gift more than he likes the giver.
Emerson left the pulpit over his discomfort with some of the church practices, such as communion, but he continued to attend Unitarian services and often wrote his opinions of the minister’s sermons, which were then published in the local newspaper. One of the failings of ministers that he noted was the lack of any personal talk from them, so that he got no sense of the man himself.
Rev. Amy, then emulating Emerson’s call for personal anecdotes, told about having lunch with her mother a few years ago in a café that was about halfway between where she lived and where her mother lived. After a long visit with her mother in the café, on the drive home she realized that she had forgotten to tip the waitress, who had given them good service and left them alone to visit. She felt terrible about her forgetfulness, so when she got home, she called the restaurant, described the waitress, and got her name. Then she sent her a card and a small amount of cash in care of the café to express her gratitude. Two weeks later she received a “Thank You” from the server and was so touched that she cried. She had not expected anything in return, yet this stranger had reached out to her and given her a gift.
She expressed a wish for all of us, at this time of year, to give the most valuable gift we can offer, the gift of time, of friendship, of honesty, of just sitting with someone in conversation or in silence, if need be. We should all take the opportunity to look someone in the eye, smile, and say, “It’s good to be with you” or to touch the shoulder of someone hurting and comfort them. Another gift that we can give others is stories. All of us have stories inside that we can share. Many of us, as adults, wish we had listened to more stories from our grandparents before it was too late.
She ended with another quote from Emerson: “The only gift is a portion of thyself…Therefore, the poet brings his poem; the shepherd his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing,” and then closed with a prayer of gratefulness. …rr Photo used under Creative Commons from verchmarco
December 9:
Many conservative Christians – and some talk radio hosts and politicians – claim that liberals in our culture are waging an intolerant “War On Christmas.” I too believe some in our culture are subverting and missing the true meaning of the season…but curiously I believe it is the very people who claim their Christian faith is being mistreated and marginalized. To explore all this, we will need to remind ourselves of what Jesus of Nazareth actually taught during his all-too-brief lifetime and ministry. Photo used under Creative Commons from Thanks for over 2 million views!! |
Rev. Scott Alexander
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Conservative commentators on talk radio and on Fox News have once again been railing recently about a supposed “war on Christmas,” but the Reverend Scott Alexander, minister of the UU Fellowship of Vero Beach and our guest speaker on Dec. 9th, calls that assertion “Nonsense,” saying that no one is preventing American Christians from celebrating the holiday in their homes, their churches, or their businesses, from displaying whatever religious decorations they wish to display, or from saying “Merry Christmas.” The conservatives blame this perceived “war” on the ACLU, but the ACLU defends the religious freedom of all groups in America, including Christians, to worship as they please. However, this freedom extends to other religious groups as well, and the separation of church and state guarantees that the government shall establish no religion nor prohibit the free exercise thereof.
A recent book titled The War on Christmas by conservative John Gibson, purports to detail in example after example how secularists have taken away the rights of Christians to celebrate Christmas, but what he fails to mention is that in the United States, the entire country is wall-to-wall Christmas during all of December and much of November. Radio stations are filled with Christmas carols, the TV runs endless Christmas ads and special holiday programming, and the stores are filled with Christmas decorations and bargains.
The problem, said Alexander, is what he called “the blinders of American privilege.” America has been considered a Christian nation for so long that Christians feel that all Americans should have to celebrate Christmas just as they do, including creches in government buildings, Christmas carols and stories in public schools, and “Merry Christmas” being uttered by everyone as a seasonal greeting. What they fail to acknowledge is that as a nation we are growing more diverse both ethnically and religiously, and a growing number of Americans are not Christians.
These blinders apply not only to Christianity but to men feeling that they their rightful male privilege has been usurped by women’s rights, whites feeling threatened that their majority status over blacks has been taken away, and the straight majority being challenged by the LGBTQ rights movement. All these long-time privileges were so engrained into American society for so long that they are perceived as the way things ought to be. What the minorities are asking is only that their rights be respected alongside, not in place of, the rights of the majority,
The real war on Christmas, asserted Alexander, is being waged by those who call themselves Christians but who ignore the teachings of the real Jesus of Nazareth—the messages of loving thy neighbor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and comforting the sick. Jesus preached a gospel of social justice, compassion, and equity, an idea not much discussed any more by the mega churches of today. Ministers like Joel Osteen, who draw thousands of people to their services in huge stadiums and millions more to their TV broadcasts, preach a message of personal happiness and wealth, and say almost nothing about helping others. The hard demands made by Jesus have given way to an easy, comfortable message of personal success and fulfillment. Christianity has become a religion about Jesus rather than the religion of Jesus.
Certainly, the policies of the current administration—doing away with affordable health care, cutting taxes for the rich, ignoring environmental problems, weakening the safety net for the poor, curbing immigration—are not consistent with the message that Jesus preached. If he should come back to earth, he would be shocked, said Alexander, at what is being passed off today as Christianity. “You’re doing this in my name?” he would ask. Alexander ended his sermon with the recommendation that rather than “keep Christ in Christmas,” Christians should be more concerned with keeping Jesus—the real Jesus of Nazareth—in Christmas. …rr
A recent book titled The War on Christmas by conservative John Gibson, purports to detail in example after example how secularists have taken away the rights of Christians to celebrate Christmas, but what he fails to mention is that in the United States, the entire country is wall-to-wall Christmas during all of December and much of November. Radio stations are filled with Christmas carols, the TV runs endless Christmas ads and special holiday programming, and the stores are filled with Christmas decorations and bargains.
The problem, said Alexander, is what he called “the blinders of American privilege.” America has been considered a Christian nation for so long that Christians feel that all Americans should have to celebrate Christmas just as they do, including creches in government buildings, Christmas carols and stories in public schools, and “Merry Christmas” being uttered by everyone as a seasonal greeting. What they fail to acknowledge is that as a nation we are growing more diverse both ethnically and religiously, and a growing number of Americans are not Christians.
These blinders apply not only to Christianity but to men feeling that they their rightful male privilege has been usurped by women’s rights, whites feeling threatened that their majority status over blacks has been taken away, and the straight majority being challenged by the LGBTQ rights movement. All these long-time privileges were so engrained into American society for so long that they are perceived as the way things ought to be. What the minorities are asking is only that their rights be respected alongside, not in place of, the rights of the majority,
The real war on Christmas, asserted Alexander, is being waged by those who call themselves Christians but who ignore the teachings of the real Jesus of Nazareth—the messages of loving thy neighbor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and comforting the sick. Jesus preached a gospel of social justice, compassion, and equity, an idea not much discussed any more by the mega churches of today. Ministers like Joel Osteen, who draw thousands of people to their services in huge stadiums and millions more to their TV broadcasts, preach a message of personal happiness and wealth, and say almost nothing about helping others. The hard demands made by Jesus have given way to an easy, comfortable message of personal success and fulfillment. Christianity has become a religion about Jesus rather than the religion of Jesus.
Certainly, the policies of the current administration—doing away with affordable health care, cutting taxes for the rich, ignoring environmental problems, weakening the safety net for the poor, curbing immigration—are not consistent with the message that Jesus preached. If he should come back to earth, he would be shocked, said Alexander, at what is being passed off today as Christianity. “You’re doing this in my name?” he would ask. Alexander ended his sermon with the recommendation that rather than “keep Christ in Christmas,” Christians should be more concerned with keeping Jesus—the real Jesus of Nazareth—in Christmas. …rr
December 2:
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania wrote, “The history of social movements is full of things that were a pejorative being reclaimed." This morning, let's consider what words we've lost to history and what words we want to reclaim and to embrace.
Photo used under Creative Commons from zeitfaenger.at
On the first Sunday of December, the Reverend Amy Kindred began her sermon with childhood memories of visiting her grandmother and following her around in the kitchen, listening to her talk about the breadbox, the oleo, the Frigidaire, and the davenport—all words that have now outlived their usefulness and can be left in the musty past. However, there are other words that, although old, still have important value and should not be discarded quite so readily.
Hermeneutics, “the branch of knowledge that explores biblical and literary text,” is a term that Rev. Amy was exposed to in seminary school, where she spent weeks analyzing scripture and defending one point of view or another, a process that soon became exhausting. She began to long for equilibrium, a balance in deciding which words we want to preserve and which we want to discard.
As UUs, we often dismiss some really powerful, good words because of certain connotations we associate with them. As Paul Rasor wrote in Reclaiming Prophetic Witness, we often associate religious words with conservatism and the religious right, and so we remove them from our vocabulary, not wanting to sound like those groups who use a bullhorn to communicate their views.
However, reclaiming and using religious language is not a bad thing. Consider the word “Jesus.” Many of us shy away from “Jesus” talk, but his message of unconditional love and radical inclusivity are a vital part of our social justice message today. UU minister, the Reverend David Bumbaugh, argues that we need “a vocabulary of reverence.” In our emphasis on reason, he says we have lost the ability “to speak of that which is sacred, holy, of ultimate importance to us.”
“Reverence” is one of those words we should hang onto. It means “deep respect for someone or something,” and it allows us to speak with the heart as well as with the head. Another is “worship,” which means to gather and speak of “topics deemed worthy of importance and respect.”
Then there is the word “spirit,” derived from the Latin “spiritus” meaning “breath” or “wind.” Spirit has been associated with one who is alive versus one who is a corpse. “Don’t we want to be part of a faith that is living and breathing?” asked Rev. Amy. To be filled with the spirit is simply to be filled with life. Then we come to the word “God.” If God is love, then God is a verb rather than a being. The verb “God” is calling us to embody the spirit that creates and liberates the world.
One word that Rev. Amy said she is still on the fence about is “blessing.” If it is meant as a wish that one be provided with good or desirable experiences, then she is fully accepting, but the problem she has is when people use it to say they were “blessed” when they survived a catastrophe in which others were not so lucky. Were those others then not blessed? And why, she asked, do people say “God bless you” when someone sneezes? No one says anything when someone coughs or blows one’s nose or burps, so why say it for a sneeze?
The final word she brought up was the reclaiming of the word “queer” by young people in the LGBTQ community. All us older people have long considered the word a pejorative, once used as a derogatory slur for gays, but the younger generation has embraced it as an inclusive term for all those not of the “straight” majority. Since the word “Unitarian” itself was once considered a pejorative term (by all those who labeled themselves Trinitarians), we can understand their point of view. As we are proud to call ourselves Unitarians, they take great pride in self-identifying as queer, and we respect and applaud their right to do so.
She ended the sermon by recognizing the season of Advent in the Christian calendar and the first evening of Hanukkah, beginning at sundown today (Dec. 2). …rr
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania wrote, “The history of social movements is full of things that were a pejorative being reclaimed." This morning, let's consider what words we've lost to history and what words we want to reclaim and to embrace.
Photo used under Creative Commons from zeitfaenger.at
On the first Sunday of December, the Reverend Amy Kindred began her sermon with childhood memories of visiting her grandmother and following her around in the kitchen, listening to her talk about the breadbox, the oleo, the Frigidaire, and the davenport—all words that have now outlived their usefulness and can be left in the musty past. However, there are other words that, although old, still have important value and should not be discarded quite so readily.
Hermeneutics, “the branch of knowledge that explores biblical and literary text,” is a term that Rev. Amy was exposed to in seminary school, where she spent weeks analyzing scripture and defending one point of view or another, a process that soon became exhausting. She began to long for equilibrium, a balance in deciding which words we want to preserve and which we want to discard.
As UUs, we often dismiss some really powerful, good words because of certain connotations we associate with them. As Paul Rasor wrote in Reclaiming Prophetic Witness, we often associate religious words with conservatism and the religious right, and so we remove them from our vocabulary, not wanting to sound like those groups who use a bullhorn to communicate their views.
However, reclaiming and using religious language is not a bad thing. Consider the word “Jesus.” Many of us shy away from “Jesus” talk, but his message of unconditional love and radical inclusivity are a vital part of our social justice message today. UU minister, the Reverend David Bumbaugh, argues that we need “a vocabulary of reverence.” In our emphasis on reason, he says we have lost the ability “to speak of that which is sacred, holy, of ultimate importance to us.”
“Reverence” is one of those words we should hang onto. It means “deep respect for someone or something,” and it allows us to speak with the heart as well as with the head. Another is “worship,” which means to gather and speak of “topics deemed worthy of importance and respect.”
Then there is the word “spirit,” derived from the Latin “spiritus” meaning “breath” or “wind.” Spirit has been associated with one who is alive versus one who is a corpse. “Don’t we want to be part of a faith that is living and breathing?” asked Rev. Amy. To be filled with the spirit is simply to be filled with life. Then we come to the word “God.” If God is love, then God is a verb rather than a being. The verb “God” is calling us to embody the spirit that creates and liberates the world.
One word that Rev. Amy said she is still on the fence about is “blessing.” If it is meant as a wish that one be provided with good or desirable experiences, then she is fully accepting, but the problem she has is when people use it to say they were “blessed” when they survived a catastrophe in which others were not so lucky. Were those others then not blessed? And why, she asked, do people say “God bless you” when someone sneezes? No one says anything when someone coughs or blows one’s nose or burps, so why say it for a sneeze?
The final word she brought up was the reclaiming of the word “queer” by young people in the LGBTQ community. All us older people have long considered the word a pejorative, once used as a derogatory slur for gays, but the younger generation has embraced it as an inclusive term for all those not of the “straight” majority. Since the word “Unitarian” itself was once considered a pejorative term (by all those who labeled themselves Trinitarians), we can understand their point of view. As we are proud to call ourselves Unitarians, they take great pride in self-identifying as queer, and we respect and applaud their right to do so.
She ended the sermon by recognizing the season of Advent in the Christian calendar and the first evening of Hanukkah, beginning at sundown today (Dec. 2). …rr
November 25:
Genetic Engineering Sermon by Dr. Scott Tilley Scott Tilley is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology, president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, president of the Space Coast chapter of INCOSE, and a SCWG Fellow. His recent books include “Systems Analysis & Design” (Cengage, 2016), “Holidays” (Anthology Alliance, 2017), and “Make Technology Great Again” (CTS Press, 2018). He writes the weekly “Technology Today” column for Florida Today (Gannett). He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria. |
Dr. Scott Tilley
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On the last Sunday of November, Dr. Scott Tilley, Professor Emeritus at the Florida Institute of Technology, presented an overview of the current state of genetic engineering (altering the genetic makeup of an organism by changing its DNA) and how this engineering affects our food, our bodies, and society in general.
Genetic changes occur in nature, but at a much slower rate, so genetic engineering might be called “nature made faster” or “directed evolution.” In 2000, the Human Genome Project mapped the DNA of humans, finding it is made up of only four elements. Those four elements, however, are sequenced in three billion base pairs, making the technology extremely expensive, so it was not until 2016 that gene editing was made possible, where genes are actually removed from the sequence. This process, called epigenetics, is done with a tool called CRISPR. It has successfully been used to correct a heart condition in an embryo and has been used on animals to make them organ donors for humans.
Genetic engineering has been used in the food industry for many years, and most of us in the United States eat GMO food practically every day. Eighty-five percent of our corn and ninety percent of our canola is genetically modified. A hormone is also given to cows to increase their milk production, although this hormone is banned from use in Europe and many other countries. The newest GMO food is meat made from stem cells taken from animals and then grown in a factory, meaning that no animals are killed or harmed in the process.
Transgenesis, the process of taking DNA from one organism and putting it into another, perhaps raises the greatest ethical questions. In 2011, a cow was modified to produce human breast milk. Are we revisiting The Island of Dr. Moreau, a movie about a mad scientist who creates hybrid human-like beings from animals by vivisection?
In 1978, when the first test tube baby was created, cries of ethical concern arose around the world, and now in vitro fertilization is widely accepted and practiced, so what will we find acceptable in the future? Are we moving toward designer babies, with parents choosing features such as eye color, intelligence, physical prowess, or gender?
Scientists are now genetically modifying animals, specifically pigs, to make them organ donors for humans. As organ replacement becomes more and more common, what will this do to our longevity? Right now, the limit on a human life is around 115 years, but if we begin to replace worn-out parts, will we extend our lives even further? And if so, how will this affect our careers, our economy, and our relationships? How long will we have to work? Our economy cannot support retirements of 50 years and more. And what about marriages? There is a growing trend in “silver divorces” as people live longer. If your college degree was obtained 50 or 60 years ago, and you’re still working at age 75 or 80, how does that education apply to the world you now find yourself in?
The issue of clones also raises ethical questions. We have no ethical issues with natural twins or triplets, and a clone is nothing more than a twin, but the difference is in scale. Clones can be unlimited in number and can be produced for any number of reasons. In 2017, scientists in China cloned a monkey, so we are very close to being able to do the same with a human. Would rich people pay to have clones made for replacement parts? Many science fiction writers have imagined what could go wrong with such attempts to clone animals and humans, such as in the movies Jurassic Park and Blade Runner and in the novel Dune by Frank Herbert.
Genetic engineering is here, and we must confront the ethical questions that it raises as we move into the future. …rr
Nov. 25, 2018— “Genetic Engineering” –Scott Tilley, PhD
On the last Sunday of November, Dr. Scott Tilley, Professor Emeritus at the Florida Institute of Technology, presented an overview of the current state of genetic engineering (altering the genetic makeup of an organism by changing its DNA) and how this engineering affects our food, our bodies, and society in general.
Genetic changes occur in nature, but at a much slower rate, so genetic engineering might be called “nature made faster” or “directed evolution.” In 2000, the Human Genome Project mapped the DNA of humans, finding it is made up of only four elements. Those four elements, however, are sequenced in three billion base pairs, making the technology extremely expensive, so it was not until 2016 that gene editing was made possible, where genes are actually removed from the sequence. This process, called epigenetics, is done with a tool called CRISPR. It has successfully been used to correct a heart condition in an embryo and has been used on animals to make them organ donors for humans.
Genetic engineering has been used in the food industry for many years, and most of us in the United States eat GMO food practically every day. Eighty-five percent of our corn and ninety percent of our canola is genetically modified. A hormone is also given to cows to increase their milk production, although this hormone is banned from use in Europe and many other countries. The newest GMO food is meat made from stem cells taken from animals and then grown in a factory, meaning that no animals are killed or harmed in the process.
Transgenesis, the process of taking DNA from one organism and putting it into another, perhaps raises the greatest ethical questions. In 2011, a cow was modified to produce human breast milk. Are we revisiting The Island of Dr. Moreau, a movie about a mad scientist who creates hybrid human-like beings from animals by vivisection?
In 1978, when the first test tube baby was created, cries of ethical concern arose around the world, and now in vitro fertilization is widely accepted and practiced, so what will we find acceptable in the future? Are we moving toward designer babies, with parents choosing features such as eye color, intelligence, physical prowess, or gender?
Scientists are now genetically modifying animals, specifically pigs, to make them organ donors for humans. As organ replacement becomes more and more common, what will this do to our longevity? Right now, the limit on a human life is around 115 years, but if we begin to replace worn-out parts, will we extend our lives even further? And if so, how will this affect our careers, our economy, and our relationships? How long will we have to work? Our economy cannot support retirements of 50 years and more. And what about marriages? There is a growing trend in “silver divorces” as people live longer. If your college degree was obtained 50 or 60 years ago, and you’re still working at age 75 or 80, how does that education apply to the world you now find yourself in?
The issue of clones also raises ethical questions. We have no ethical issues with natural twins or triplets, and a clone is nothing more than a twin, but the difference is in scale. Clones can be unlimited in number and can be produced for any number of reasons. In 2017, scientists in China cloned a monkey, so we are very close to being able to do the same with a human. Would rich people pay to have clones made for replacement parts? Many science fiction writers have imagined what could go wrong with such attempts to clone animals and humans, such as in the moviesJurassic Park and Blade Runner and in the novel Dune by Frank Herbert.
Genetic engineering is here, and we must confront the ethical questions that it raises as we move into the future. …rr
Genetic changes occur in nature, but at a much slower rate, so genetic engineering might be called “nature made faster” or “directed evolution.” In 2000, the Human Genome Project mapped the DNA of humans, finding it is made up of only four elements. Those four elements, however, are sequenced in three billion base pairs, making the technology extremely expensive, so it was not until 2016 that gene editing was made possible, where genes are actually removed from the sequence. This process, called epigenetics, is done with a tool called CRISPR. It has successfully been used to correct a heart condition in an embryo and has been used on animals to make them organ donors for humans.
Genetic engineering has been used in the food industry for many years, and most of us in the United States eat GMO food practically every day. Eighty-five percent of our corn and ninety percent of our canola is genetically modified. A hormone is also given to cows to increase their milk production, although this hormone is banned from use in Europe and many other countries. The newest GMO food is meat made from stem cells taken from animals and then grown in a factory, meaning that no animals are killed or harmed in the process.
Transgenesis, the process of taking DNA from one organism and putting it into another, perhaps raises the greatest ethical questions. In 2011, a cow was modified to produce human breast milk. Are we revisiting The Island of Dr. Moreau, a movie about a mad scientist who creates hybrid human-like beings from animals by vivisection?
In 1978, when the first test tube baby was created, cries of ethical concern arose around the world, and now in vitro fertilization is widely accepted and practiced, so what will we find acceptable in the future? Are we moving toward designer babies, with parents choosing features such as eye color, intelligence, physical prowess, or gender?
Scientists are now genetically modifying animals, specifically pigs, to make them organ donors for humans. As organ replacement becomes more and more common, what will this do to our longevity? Right now, the limit on a human life is around 115 years, but if we begin to replace worn-out parts, will we extend our lives even further? And if so, how will this affect our careers, our economy, and our relationships? How long will we have to work? Our economy cannot support retirements of 50 years and more. And what about marriages? There is a growing trend in “silver divorces” as people live longer. If your college degree was obtained 50 or 60 years ago, and you’re still working at age 75 or 80, how does that education apply to the world you now find yourself in?
The issue of clones also raises ethical questions. We have no ethical issues with natural twins or triplets, and a clone is nothing more than a twin, but the difference is in scale. Clones can be unlimited in number and can be produced for any number of reasons. In 2017, scientists in China cloned a monkey, so we are very close to being able to do the same with a human. Would rich people pay to have clones made for replacement parts? Many science fiction writers have imagined what could go wrong with such attempts to clone animals and humans, such as in the movies Jurassic Park and Blade Runner and in the novel Dune by Frank Herbert.
Genetic engineering is here, and we must confront the ethical questions that it raises as we move into the future. …rr
Nov. 25, 2018— “Genetic Engineering” –Scott Tilley, PhD
On the last Sunday of November, Dr. Scott Tilley, Professor Emeritus at the Florida Institute of Technology, presented an overview of the current state of genetic engineering (altering the genetic makeup of an organism by changing its DNA) and how this engineering affects our food, our bodies, and society in general.
Genetic changes occur in nature, but at a much slower rate, so genetic engineering might be called “nature made faster” or “directed evolution.” In 2000, the Human Genome Project mapped the DNA of humans, finding it is made up of only four elements. Those four elements, however, are sequenced in three billion base pairs, making the technology extremely expensive, so it was not until 2016 that gene editing was made possible, where genes are actually removed from the sequence. This process, called epigenetics, is done with a tool called CRISPR. It has successfully been used to correct a heart condition in an embryo and has been used on animals to make them organ donors for humans.
Genetic engineering has been used in the food industry for many years, and most of us in the United States eat GMO food practically every day. Eighty-five percent of our corn and ninety percent of our canola is genetically modified. A hormone is also given to cows to increase their milk production, although this hormone is banned from use in Europe and many other countries. The newest GMO food is meat made from stem cells taken from animals and then grown in a factory, meaning that no animals are killed or harmed in the process.
Transgenesis, the process of taking DNA from one organism and putting it into another, perhaps raises the greatest ethical questions. In 2011, a cow was modified to produce human breast milk. Are we revisiting The Island of Dr. Moreau, a movie about a mad scientist who creates hybrid human-like beings from animals by vivisection?
In 1978, when the first test tube baby was created, cries of ethical concern arose around the world, and now in vitro fertilization is widely accepted and practiced, so what will we find acceptable in the future? Are we moving toward designer babies, with parents choosing features such as eye color, intelligence, physical prowess, or gender?
Scientists are now genetically modifying animals, specifically pigs, to make them organ donors for humans. As organ replacement becomes more and more common, what will this do to our longevity? Right now, the limit on a human life is around 115 years, but if we begin to replace worn-out parts, will we extend our lives even further? And if so, how will this affect our careers, our economy, and our relationships? How long will we have to work? Our economy cannot support retirements of 50 years and more. And what about marriages? There is a growing trend in “silver divorces” as people live longer. If your college degree was obtained 50 or 60 years ago, and you’re still working at age 75 or 80, how does that education apply to the world you now find yourself in?
The issue of clones also raises ethical questions. We have no ethical issues with natural twins or triplets, and a clone is nothing more than a twin, but the difference is in scale. Clones can be unlimited in number and can be produced for any number of reasons. In 2017, scientists in China cloned a monkey, so we are very close to being able to do the same with a human. Would rich people pay to have clones made for replacement parts? Many science fiction writers have imagined what could go wrong with such attempts to clone animals and humans, such as in the moviesJurassic Park and Blade Runner and in the novel Dune by Frank Herbert.
Genetic engineering is here, and we must confront the ethical questions that it raises as we move into the future. …rr
November 18
Gratitude for Every Link
in the Food Chain
Sermon by Rev. Amy Kindred
This morning, we celebrate the gift of food, recall memories associated with sharing meals and reflect on the power of earth's abundance to nourish and sustain us.
On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, our minister, the Reverend Amy Kindred, reminded us of the interconnectedness of all life and of our indebtedness to all those who contribute to bringing the food to our table not just on Thanksgiving Day but every day of the year. She began with a favorite memory of her first time being invited to sit at the grown-up table for the Thanksgiving meal and how, as the meal began, she had knocked over a glass of tea, sending everyone out of their chairs, napkins flying to soak up the liquid and save the meal. In spite of the mishap, she still treasures the moment as a rite of passage.
She followed that memory with the story of Spider Woman, a character found in many cultures throughout the world, including Africa, India, Egypt and North America. In this story, Spider Woman is lonely and looking for company. She climbs a big mountain, sets up her loom, and begins to weave. Each time one thread crosses another, a star appears. She keeps weaving until she has woven thousands of stars, each of them tied to every other one in the web. Then she chooses one star that has some planets circling it and sets up her loom again on one of those planets that has bright blue oceans and sparkling white clouds.
This time, as she weaves, a living being appears, and she weaves plants and animals and then human beings, with every being connected to every other being and thing, even the distant stars. Every day, whenever a new flower opens or a new animal is born, we know that Spider Woman is still weaving and that we are all a part of the interdependent web of all existence.
When we forget to care about the poor among us, we raise our own level of anxiety and despair. The Hindus and Buddhists call it karma, and Jesus said, “That which you sow also shall you reap.” Folklore says, “What goes around, comes around.” When we are greedy or stingy with others, that greed and stinginess rebounds on us. Whether this is actually true or not, as UUs we have a calling to do whatever we can to support the dignity and worth of others. This week, as we celebrate Thanksgiving, we all need to have “an attitude of not just gratitude but of connectedness” to this interdependence.
As we sit down to our Thanksgiving dinners, Rev. Amy urged us to say a prayer of appreciation for the farmworkers who picked the pumpkins in Illinois, the green beans and mushrooms in Pennsylvania, the cranberries in Massachusetts and Wisconsin, and the apples in Michigan and Washington state. The farmworkers who picked the sweet potatoes in North Carolina have an annual income of about $11.000, and the tomato workers in Immokalee, Florida, our neighbors to the west, make about $8.75 an hour. She then told us about the Fair Food program advocated by the Coalition for Immokalee Workers (CIW.org.) where just one penny more per pound for tomatoes could raise wages by 20-35%. Companies that have signed on include Wal-Mart, Chipotles, Trader Joe’s, Subway, McDonald’s, and Whole Foods, but two companies missing from this list are Publix and Wendy’s.
Gratitude for Every Link
in the Food Chain
Sermon by Rev. Amy Kindred
This morning, we celebrate the gift of food, recall memories associated with sharing meals and reflect on the power of earth's abundance to nourish and sustain us.
On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, our minister, the Reverend Amy Kindred, reminded us of the interconnectedness of all life and of our indebtedness to all those who contribute to bringing the food to our table not just on Thanksgiving Day but every day of the year. She began with a favorite memory of her first time being invited to sit at the grown-up table for the Thanksgiving meal and how, as the meal began, she had knocked over a glass of tea, sending everyone out of their chairs, napkins flying to soak up the liquid and save the meal. In spite of the mishap, she still treasures the moment as a rite of passage.
She followed that memory with the story of Spider Woman, a character found in many cultures throughout the world, including Africa, India, Egypt and North America. In this story, Spider Woman is lonely and looking for company. She climbs a big mountain, sets up her loom, and begins to weave. Each time one thread crosses another, a star appears. She keeps weaving until she has woven thousands of stars, each of them tied to every other one in the web. Then she chooses one star that has some planets circling it and sets up her loom again on one of those planets that has bright blue oceans and sparkling white clouds.
This time, as she weaves, a living being appears, and she weaves plants and animals and then human beings, with every being connected to every other being and thing, even the distant stars. Every day, whenever a new flower opens or a new animal is born, we know that Spider Woman is still weaving and that we are all a part of the interdependent web of all existence.
When we forget to care about the poor among us, we raise our own level of anxiety and despair. The Hindus and Buddhists call it karma, and Jesus said, “That which you sow also shall you reap.” Folklore says, “What goes around, comes around.” When we are greedy or stingy with others, that greed and stinginess rebounds on us. Whether this is actually true or not, as UUs we have a calling to do whatever we can to support the dignity and worth of others. This week, as we celebrate Thanksgiving, we all need to have “an attitude of not just gratitude but of connectedness” to this interdependence.
As we sit down to our Thanksgiving dinners, Rev. Amy urged us to say a prayer of appreciation for the farmworkers who picked the pumpkins in Illinois, the green beans and mushrooms in Pennsylvania, the cranberries in Massachusetts and Wisconsin, and the apples in Michigan and Washington state. The farmworkers who picked the sweet potatoes in North Carolina have an annual income of about $11.000, and the tomato workers in Immokalee, Florida, our neighbors to the west, make about $8.75 an hour. She then told us about the Fair Food program advocated by the Coalition for Immokalee Workers (CIW.org.) where just one penny more per pound for tomatoes could raise wages by 20-35%. Companies that have signed on include Wal-Mart, Chipotles, Trader Joe’s, Subway, McDonald’s, and Whole Foods, but two companies missing from this list are Publix and Wendy’s.
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Every day our farmworkers are reaching—reaching to pick produce, reaching to hoist buckets of fruits and vegetables to waiting hands on flat-bed trucks, and reaching to catch empty buckets to fill again. Rev. Amy asked us all to put our hands up and consider this idea of reaching as we remember that the food we consume, not just on Thanksgiving, but every day, arrives at our tables through the efforts of men and women who likely live at or below the poverty line. As we reach, may we receive more compassion, more hope, more love.
She ended her sermon with a short video of the allegory of the long spoons, right, where people discover the solution is feeding one another. …rr |
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November 11:
All UU Picnic
with Memorial Day messages
All three Unitarian Universalist congregations in Brevard County, FL, (named below) came together on Sunday, November 11, to celebrate Veterans Day with a Sunday morning service at Rotary Park in Merritt Island, followed by a potluck lunch. The service began with a moving solo of our National Anthem by Friendship Fellowship’s Music Director, Stephen Downen, followed by readings honoring and thanking our veterans and music from the combined choir of all three congregations. Three speakers representing the three UU congregations then spoke briefly.
The Reverend Amy Kindred of Friendship Fellowship told a story about a bus tour in Italy that she and her husband were taking. At one of the stops on the trip she saw one of the bus passengers smoke a cigarette and then discard the butt on the ground. She said nothing, but she was silently criticizing the man in her mind for his action. Later, she and her husband sat with the man and his wife at dinner and learned that he had been in the military, but she did not know the full extent of his service until later in the tour when a group of officers boarded the bus to check everyone’s passports. When the officer came to the man’s seat, he saluted him with “Sir, thank you, Sir,” and she learned that he had served four combat tours in Afghanistan during his twenty years of military service. All of us owe him and our other veterans so much gratitude for their heroic and often unacknowledged service.
Dr. David Stewart, representing the UU Congregation Center in Cocoa, described walking into Publix a day or two earlier and receiving a poppy, reminding him of his grandfather’s service in WWI and WWII. Because Unitarian Universalists supported conscientious objectors during the Vietnam era, many people might think that UUs are anti-military service, but that is not the case. War is not our first choice, but it is sometimes necessary, and many UUs are military veterans. Although Stewart himself is not a veteran, he has two brothers and a son who have served in the military. Again, he emphasized that we must appreciate our warriors who risk their lives daily on our behalf.
Seminarian Bobby Kilgore, USMC (Ret), representing the UU Church of Brevard in West Melbourne, saw combat in Iran, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern countries during her service in the Marines. As a veteran, she said she hated war and her constant prayer was for peace so that our troops could be brought home. Many Americans do not realize how many US troops are serving today around the world, many in war zones where they face constant danger. She is now chaplain for the local American Legion, and she urged all of us to remember especially those veterans without families or those suffering from PTSD and to reach out to them and be a light for them.
After the service concluded, the three congregations enjoyed food and fellowship together. …rr
All UU Picnic
with Memorial Day messages
All three Unitarian Universalist congregations in Brevard County, FL, (named below) came together on Sunday, November 11, to celebrate Veterans Day with a Sunday morning service at Rotary Park in Merritt Island, followed by a potluck lunch. The service began with a moving solo of our National Anthem by Friendship Fellowship’s Music Director, Stephen Downen, followed by readings honoring and thanking our veterans and music from the combined choir of all three congregations. Three speakers representing the three UU congregations then spoke briefly.
The Reverend Amy Kindred of Friendship Fellowship told a story about a bus tour in Italy that she and her husband were taking. At one of the stops on the trip she saw one of the bus passengers smoke a cigarette and then discard the butt on the ground. She said nothing, but she was silently criticizing the man in her mind for his action. Later, she and her husband sat with the man and his wife at dinner and learned that he had been in the military, but she did not know the full extent of his service until later in the tour when a group of officers boarded the bus to check everyone’s passports. When the officer came to the man’s seat, he saluted him with “Sir, thank you, Sir,” and she learned that he had served four combat tours in Afghanistan during his twenty years of military service. All of us owe him and our other veterans so much gratitude for their heroic and often unacknowledged service.
Dr. David Stewart, representing the UU Congregation Center in Cocoa, described walking into Publix a day or two earlier and receiving a poppy, reminding him of his grandfather’s service in WWI and WWII. Because Unitarian Universalists supported conscientious objectors during the Vietnam era, many people might think that UUs are anti-military service, but that is not the case. War is not our first choice, but it is sometimes necessary, and many UUs are military veterans. Although Stewart himself is not a veteran, he has two brothers and a son who have served in the military. Again, he emphasized that we must appreciate our warriors who risk their lives daily on our behalf.
Seminarian Bobby Kilgore, USMC (Ret), representing the UU Church of Brevard in West Melbourne, saw combat in Iran, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern countries during her service in the Marines. As a veteran, she said she hated war and her constant prayer was for peace so that our troops could be brought home. Many Americans do not realize how many US troops are serving today around the world, many in war zones where they face constant danger. She is now chaplain for the local American Legion, and she urged all of us to remember especially those veterans without families or those suffering from PTSD and to reach out to them and be a light for them.
After the service concluded, the three congregations enjoyed food and fellowship together. …rr
October 28:
What does it mean to embrace a "theology of creativity?" If we profess that WE are the ones to create a better world in the here and now, how will we make that happen? What is the creative imagination worth to us?
On Nov. 4, we welcomed our new minister, the Reverend Amy Kindred, who brought us a message about the role of creativity in opening up our lives to embrace change and growth. She began with a story told by Rachel Naomi Remen, who wrote about her Russian mother tying red ribbons to her crib and carriage and later putting pieces of ribbon in the pockets of her clothes or in her shoes to protect her from the Evil Eye. Her mother continued the practice even as she became an adult, and she became so accustomed to these ribbons that she hardly noticed them. One day, more than a dozen years after her mother’s death, she found a piece of ribbon in the bottom of an old purse. These ribbons represented her family’s worldview that the world was a dangerous place, and they were all looking out for one another, a way of saying that life is valuable and too important to lose or misplace.
However, Remen concluded, there is a difference between defending life and befriending it, between holding on to what you have at all costs and strengthening and supporting life’s movement toward its own wholeness. Rev. Amy reminded us that we often hold onto things because we are afraid to take risks, but we also need to open ourselves up to trying new things, to embracing forward thinking and using creativity to make our lives sustainable. Creativity is more than making lovely works of art; it is essential to who we are. She assured us that she is not coming in to force us to make major changes in the way we do things at Friendship Fellowship of Pineda, but said that she was addressing creativity in a broader sense. Nature is a great teacher in showing us how creativity is needed for sustainability. She described the silver ants who live in the Sahara Desert whose bodies reflect light and heat. They can only leave their underground homes for ten minutes a day to find food—any longer and they die. As a consequence, they have learned to work together in an orderly way to acquire food.
With the challenges facing us today in climate change and continued depletion of the earth’s resources, we can no longer remain stuck in the old patterns that have led us to this point. We must move out of our comfort zones and find new ways forward, and those new ways require creativity, for the good of both ourselves and the earth. Essentially, said Rev. Amy, we must stop whining and come up with solutions. Most of us are whiners, and she readily admitted to being a whiner herself, but our whining must not stop with complaining but move into working toward answers. One of the ways we can make a difference, she said, was to shift away from our dependency on fossil fuels and eat a more plant-based diet. All of us can eat less meat, which will help to cut down on some of the changes in climate that we are all experiencing. We don’t all have to become vegetarians, but if we can move away from meat for a few days a week, or even one day a week, we can lessen some of the effects of climate change.
She concluded by saying that she would not be telling us what to do, but she hoped that we would be open to trying new things as after 25 years of part-time ministry, we begin our journey together with our first full-time minister. ...rr Photo by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash
What does it mean to embrace a "theology of creativity?" If we profess that WE are the ones to create a better world in the here and now, how will we make that happen? What is the creative imagination worth to us?
On Nov. 4, we welcomed our new minister, the Reverend Amy Kindred, who brought us a message about the role of creativity in opening up our lives to embrace change and growth. She began with a story told by Rachel Naomi Remen, who wrote about her Russian mother tying red ribbons to her crib and carriage and later putting pieces of ribbon in the pockets of her clothes or in her shoes to protect her from the Evil Eye. Her mother continued the practice even as she became an adult, and she became so accustomed to these ribbons that she hardly noticed them. One day, more than a dozen years after her mother’s death, she found a piece of ribbon in the bottom of an old purse. These ribbons represented her family’s worldview that the world was a dangerous place, and they were all looking out for one another, a way of saying that life is valuable and too important to lose or misplace.
However, Remen concluded, there is a difference between defending life and befriending it, between holding on to what you have at all costs and strengthening and supporting life’s movement toward its own wholeness. Rev. Amy reminded us that we often hold onto things because we are afraid to take risks, but we also need to open ourselves up to trying new things, to embracing forward thinking and using creativity to make our lives sustainable. Creativity is more than making lovely works of art; it is essential to who we are. She assured us that she is not coming in to force us to make major changes in the way we do things at Friendship Fellowship of Pineda, but said that she was addressing creativity in a broader sense. Nature is a great teacher in showing us how creativity is needed for sustainability. She described the silver ants who live in the Sahara Desert whose bodies reflect light and heat. They can only leave their underground homes for ten minutes a day to find food—any longer and they die. As a consequence, they have learned to work together in an orderly way to acquire food.
With the challenges facing us today in climate change and continued depletion of the earth’s resources, we can no longer remain stuck in the old patterns that have led us to this point. We must move out of our comfort zones and find new ways forward, and those new ways require creativity, for the good of both ourselves and the earth. Essentially, said Rev. Amy, we must stop whining and come up with solutions. Most of us are whiners, and she readily admitted to being a whiner herself, but our whining must not stop with complaining but move into working toward answers. One of the ways we can make a difference, she said, was to shift away from our dependency on fossil fuels and eat a more plant-based diet. All of us can eat less meat, which will help to cut down on some of the changes in climate that we are all experiencing. We don’t all have to become vegetarians, but if we can move away from meat for a few days a week, or even one day a week, we can lessen some of the effects of climate change.
She concluded by saying that she would not be telling us what to do, but she hoped that we would be open to trying new things as after 25 years of part-time ministry, we begin our journey together with our first full-time minister. ...rr Photo by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash
October 28:
The Future:
Electrification of Transportation
Sermon by Mark Senti
Clean, quiet and efficient – Energy and Transportation
Since first discovered in the late 1800s, magnetics has modernized society by enabling the generation of electricity, mining, manufacturing, electronics and more. Now, over 200 years later the world is moving into the next phase of electricity use – the electrification of transportation. Not just for electric vehicles, the electrification of aerospace will allow a dramatic improvement to flight enabling a quiet, clean and highly reliable solution for aircraft propulsion.
Mr. Senti’s presentation will tie together the role of magnetics, electricity, the future of electric transportation and challenges supplying the electrical energy.
Summary by Ruth Rodgers:
Mark Senti, CEO and co-founder of AML, a company working with superconductivity and magnets, was our guest speaker on Oct. 28 and presented a fascinating look at a future transportation system already being developed that will make our way of getting around very different from the way it is today. The future is now, Senti said, and these changes are already occurring. Today, about 29% of all US energy is used for transportation, and 92% of that energy is petroleum, but in the very near future, that petroleum will not be needed because most cars (and other forms of transportation) will run on electricity.
Magnets are necessary for electricity and for much of our everyday lives. The earth is protected by a magnetic field, and we see magnets being used all around us. Think of MRIs in the medical field. Electric motors require magnets, and all transportation systems (not just automobiles) are headed in that direction, away from petroleum. An electric motor converts 95% of its energy to movement and is much more efficient than gasoline or diesel. And it’s not just Tesla that is building electric cars; all of the big automobile companies are working on electric motors. Ships are being built now that are hybrid, using both fuel and electricity, and we have all seen the rapid advance of drones being used for such things as package delivery.
The future of flight is electric aircraft. Siemens is already flying electric planes, and all the aeronautics companies are heading in that direction. Most of us remember the flying cars on the Jetson’s TV series, and they are closer to reality than we might think. Companies such as Embraer and Uber Air (and as many as 40 companies) are developing eVTOL’s (vertical takeoff and landing vehicles) right now. Just think, said Senti, of how that might improve medical services such as delivery of organs. Airbus is working on building an automobile that would run both as a regular car on the road and a flying car in the air.
Another transportation system being developed is a vacuum tube hyper transport that could carry passengers at speeds of 450 to 4,000 miles per hour. Test tracks are being built now in Nevada.
The big question is how do we power all these electric vehicles? According to Senti, the most efficient, inexpensive, and renewable source is off-shore wind. Apple and Google already run on 100% renewable green energy, and the future of transportation lies in producing more energy-efficient electric motors that will power a combination of electric cars, eVTOLs, ships, planes, and hyperloop systems. The future is upon us, and we will all have to adapt to the changes it will bring. ...rr
The Future:
Electrification of Transportation
Sermon by Mark Senti
Clean, quiet and efficient – Energy and Transportation
Since first discovered in the late 1800s, magnetics has modernized society by enabling the generation of electricity, mining, manufacturing, electronics and more. Now, over 200 years later the world is moving into the next phase of electricity use – the electrification of transportation. Not just for electric vehicles, the electrification of aerospace will allow a dramatic improvement to flight enabling a quiet, clean and highly reliable solution for aircraft propulsion.
Mr. Senti’s presentation will tie together the role of magnetics, electricity, the future of electric transportation and challenges supplying the electrical energy.
Summary by Ruth Rodgers:
Mark Senti, CEO and co-founder of AML, a company working with superconductivity and magnets, was our guest speaker on Oct. 28 and presented a fascinating look at a future transportation system already being developed that will make our way of getting around very different from the way it is today. The future is now, Senti said, and these changes are already occurring. Today, about 29% of all US energy is used for transportation, and 92% of that energy is petroleum, but in the very near future, that petroleum will not be needed because most cars (and other forms of transportation) will run on electricity.
Magnets are necessary for electricity and for much of our everyday lives. The earth is protected by a magnetic field, and we see magnets being used all around us. Think of MRIs in the medical field. Electric motors require magnets, and all transportation systems (not just automobiles) are headed in that direction, away from petroleum. An electric motor converts 95% of its energy to movement and is much more efficient than gasoline or diesel. And it’s not just Tesla that is building electric cars; all of the big automobile companies are working on electric motors. Ships are being built now that are hybrid, using both fuel and electricity, and we have all seen the rapid advance of drones being used for such things as package delivery.
The future of flight is electric aircraft. Siemens is already flying electric planes, and all the aeronautics companies are heading in that direction. Most of us remember the flying cars on the Jetson’s TV series, and they are closer to reality than we might think. Companies such as Embraer and Uber Air (and as many as 40 companies) are developing eVTOL’s (vertical takeoff and landing vehicles) right now. Just think, said Senti, of how that might improve medical services such as delivery of organs. Airbus is working on building an automobile that would run both as a regular car on the road and a flying car in the air.
Another transportation system being developed is a vacuum tube hyper transport that could carry passengers at speeds of 450 to 4,000 miles per hour. Test tracks are being built now in Nevada.
The big question is how do we power all these electric vehicles? According to Senti, the most efficient, inexpensive, and renewable source is off-shore wind. Apple and Google already run on 100% renewable green energy, and the future of transportation lies in producing more energy-efficient electric motors that will power a combination of electric cars, eVTOLs, ships, planes, and hyperloop systems. The future is upon us, and we will all have to adapt to the changes it will bring. ...rr
Mark Senti
Mark Senti is a visionary leader with over 30 years of experience leading companies at the forefront of innovation and technology. Currently, Mr. Senti serves as CEO and Chairman of AML Superconductivity and Magnetics (AML) a US-based application development company at the forefront of the most anticipated transformational solutions in a broad range of sectors including medical, energy, aerospace, water and environment.
At AML, Mr. Senti has led the strategic direction of the company since its inception, with responsibilities that include developing business and investment strategies, Intellectual Property strategies and joint ventures. He has also led the collaborative relationships including large companies, NASA, U.S. Department of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory, National High Magnetic Field Lab, Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (United Arab Emirates), and Universities.
As part of his mission to accelerate the company’s product platforms, Mr. Senti spearheaded the establishment of AML’s presence in the Silicon Valley and the company’s first joint venture, the Impact Innovation Alliance of Chile. He serves as Innovation Director of this new multi-million dollar venture, executing a plan to accelerate global commercialization of superconductivity for energy, mining and the environment.
He has deep experience in developing innovative manufacturing and technology solutions, with a background that includes advanced work in superconducting magnetics and supercomputers, robotics, automated systems and sustainability. Mr. Senti has appeared on CNN and is a respected author and speaker on these topics.
He founded and, for over 12 years, led GSMA Systems, Inc., an international provider of robotics and factory automated systems, which was acquired in by SWF Companies, now a subsidiary of Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc. As part of the acquisition, Mr. Senti was appointed General Manager, GSMA Robotics Division and Vice President of Technology, SWF Companies.
Mr. Senti began his career developing a wide array of projects from hardware design to the manufacturing processes for Cray Research, Inc., receiving the Cray Research Leadership and Innovation Award in 1990 for his design and implementation of automation of wiring and testing of Cray Supercomputers. He is the recipient of many awards, including international recognition with the 1992 Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and 2015 Congressional Special Recognition Lifetime Achievement in Technology Award. Space Coast Business – 2017 Business Leaders of the Year for Technology.
Read more at www.AML-Enabled.com
At AML, Mr. Senti has led the strategic direction of the company since its inception, with responsibilities that include developing business and investment strategies, Intellectual Property strategies and joint ventures. He has also led the collaborative relationships including large companies, NASA, U.S. Department of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory, National High Magnetic Field Lab, Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (United Arab Emirates), and Universities.
As part of his mission to accelerate the company’s product platforms, Mr. Senti spearheaded the establishment of AML’s presence in the Silicon Valley and the company’s first joint venture, the Impact Innovation Alliance of Chile. He serves as Innovation Director of this new multi-million dollar venture, executing a plan to accelerate global commercialization of superconductivity for energy, mining and the environment.
He has deep experience in developing innovative manufacturing and technology solutions, with a background that includes advanced work in superconducting magnetics and supercomputers, robotics, automated systems and sustainability. Mr. Senti has appeared on CNN and is a respected author and speaker on these topics.
He founded and, for over 12 years, led GSMA Systems, Inc., an international provider of robotics and factory automated systems, which was acquired in by SWF Companies, now a subsidiary of Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc. As part of the acquisition, Mr. Senti was appointed General Manager, GSMA Robotics Division and Vice President of Technology, SWF Companies.
Mr. Senti began his career developing a wide array of projects from hardware design to the manufacturing processes for Cray Research, Inc., receiving the Cray Research Leadership and Innovation Award in 1990 for his design and implementation of automation of wiring and testing of Cray Supercomputers. He is the recipient of many awards, including international recognition with the 1992 Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and 2015 Congressional Special Recognition Lifetime Achievement in Technology Award. Space Coast Business – 2017 Business Leaders of the Year for Technology.
Read more at www.AML-Enabled.com
October 21:
The Benefits of Being Curious
Sermon by Rev. John Brown
Our guest speaker on Oct. 21, the Reverend Dr. John Brown of Vero Beach, began his sermon by enumerating some of the benefits he has experienced from being curious. He finds a sense of curiosity to be energizing, spurring him on to dig deeper to learn more and to accept challenges. It releases the child in him, that sense of “Gee, whiz! And “Wow!” Curiosity leads to exploratory behavior, and an inquisitive nature is inherently rewarding and pleasurable. It releases dopamine in the brain, which improves our attention and motivation. The great scientist Albert Einstein said that he had no special talents except for a passionate curiosity to understand how things worked, and Eleanor Roosevelt said that our greatest gift is curiosity. By being curious, we learn things about ourselves, about those around us, and about the world.
From this opening, Brown focused his sense of curiosity on the concept of God. For many UU’s, the use of the word “God” or “worship” or “prayer,” may be uncomfortable, but “God” can mean different things to different people. For some, God may mean the force that created the universe and set it in motion: to others it may be the power of love or the great mystery. For some, God is a loving presence, a Father-figure, while to others God is completely impersonal or absent. UU minister Scotty McClennan writes that in his childhood God was a magical all-powerful being who could see and do anything. By the time he reached his teens, God had become a parent who was watching over him, and in his early 20’s God became an impersonal force. Now, in his maturity, he finds himself praying again to a personal God even though intellectually he knows God is impersonal.
Having been involved with Unitarian Universalism for only a little over a year now, Brown has found himself very interested in the differing perspectives on God among UU’s. Many UU’s have come out of religions where God was portrayed as very judgmental and cruel, so they have rebelled against this notion. He quoted an African American UU humanist who said that he finds his comfort and support in community, not in God. For Brown, God gives us free choice in life, and we are responsible for finding our own joy. God is love, and we can find that love in our community, in those around us. He described a trip he took in college to Austria sponsored by the World Council of Churches, young people from all over the world working together to build a church. Another example he gave was a wedding at which he officiated in which the husband, shortly before the wedding, confessed to his wife-to-be that he was bisexual. The wife, after adjusting to the news, went ahead with the wedding, and the couple went on to have a happy marriage.
God is unconditional love, which requires a sense of empathy, to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and imagine what that person is going through. And imagining the emotions and experiences of others requires curiosity. All of us should strive to be loving and empathetic, to see those around us as worthy of love and respect. We should not try to anthropomorphize God, but we should continue to be curious about the world around us. Asking questions helps us all to live more meaningful and fulfilled lives. …rr
The Benefits of Being Curious
Sermon by Rev. John Brown
Our guest speaker on Oct. 21, the Reverend Dr. John Brown of Vero Beach, began his sermon by enumerating some of the benefits he has experienced from being curious. He finds a sense of curiosity to be energizing, spurring him on to dig deeper to learn more and to accept challenges. It releases the child in him, that sense of “Gee, whiz! And “Wow!” Curiosity leads to exploratory behavior, and an inquisitive nature is inherently rewarding and pleasurable. It releases dopamine in the brain, which improves our attention and motivation. The great scientist Albert Einstein said that he had no special talents except for a passionate curiosity to understand how things worked, and Eleanor Roosevelt said that our greatest gift is curiosity. By being curious, we learn things about ourselves, about those around us, and about the world.
From this opening, Brown focused his sense of curiosity on the concept of God. For many UU’s, the use of the word “God” or “worship” or “prayer,” may be uncomfortable, but “God” can mean different things to different people. For some, God may mean the force that created the universe and set it in motion: to others it may be the power of love or the great mystery. For some, God is a loving presence, a Father-figure, while to others God is completely impersonal or absent. UU minister Scotty McClennan writes that in his childhood God was a magical all-powerful being who could see and do anything. By the time he reached his teens, God had become a parent who was watching over him, and in his early 20’s God became an impersonal force. Now, in his maturity, he finds himself praying again to a personal God even though intellectually he knows God is impersonal.
Having been involved with Unitarian Universalism for only a little over a year now, Brown has found himself very interested in the differing perspectives on God among UU’s. Many UU’s have come out of religions where God was portrayed as very judgmental and cruel, so they have rebelled against this notion. He quoted an African American UU humanist who said that he finds his comfort and support in community, not in God. For Brown, God gives us free choice in life, and we are responsible for finding our own joy. God is love, and we can find that love in our community, in those around us. He described a trip he took in college to Austria sponsored by the World Council of Churches, young people from all over the world working together to build a church. Another example he gave was a wedding at which he officiated in which the husband, shortly before the wedding, confessed to his wife-to-be that he was bisexual. The wife, after adjusting to the news, went ahead with the wedding, and the couple went on to have a happy marriage.
God is unconditional love, which requires a sense of empathy, to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and imagine what that person is going through. And imagining the emotions and experiences of others requires curiosity. All of us should strive to be loving and empathetic, to see those around us as worthy of love and respect. We should not try to anthropomorphize God, but we should continue to be curious about the world around us. Asking questions helps us all to live more meaningful and fulfilled lives. …rr
October 7: Annual Meeting (no sermon)
October 7:
Jesus' Family
Sermon by Rev. Dr. Robert Tucker
Summary by Helen Bennett
Since October is Family History Month, Dr. Tucker decided to enlighten us about the family of Jesus. This is a confusing account, as sources differ and no one is absolutely certain about the relationships. What we do know is that Jesus’ mother was Mary, and his step-father (supposedly!) was Joseph. His brother James is well known, but Jesus supposedly had four brothers and at least two sisters. The brothers named in the Gospels were James, Joses (or Joseph), Judas, and Simon, but the sisters are unnamed.
In December 2002 an exciting discovery was made! An ossuary (a burial box for bones) was found that dated to the year 63 CE, just three decades after the death of Jesus. The inscription on the ossuary said, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” The problem with this finding was that there were many people named James with fathers named Joseph, and the inscription was written by two different hands, leading scholars to think it was a forgery. (James had been stoned to death as a Jewish heretic in the year 62 CE.) Other ossuaries have been found that some believed belonged to the family of Jesus, but most scholars believed them to be fraudulent.
Dr. Tucker was astonished to learn that some Christians in his churches did not know that Jesus was a Jew! They also didn’t know that Joseph initially rejected Mary when he found out that she was pregnant, but not by him. An angel visited him in his dreams to tell him to stick with Mary, as she was with child by the Holy Spirit. Jesus was Mary’s first-born son, but there were several children after that (see above). The Catholic Church, wanting to preserve Mary’s virginity, asserted that those other children were Joseph’s by his first wife, or cousins of Jesus.
Joseph appears in the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John, and it is through his lineage that Jesus supposedly descended from King David, so that he could claim messiahship.This is strange, since he was supposedly not Joseph’s biological son. Some did call Joseph the “father of Jesus,” but Jesus was also referred to as the “son of Mary,” an unusual reference unless the father was unknown or had died. Mary was given an immaculate conception through her supposed mother Anna, so that she would not inherit original sin. Some anti-Christians claimed that Jesus was born of an illegitimate pregnancy, and others claimed that Panthera was the biological father of Jesus. These anti-Christian writings portray Mary as immoral and her son Jesus as a charlatan. “Such scurrilous attacks were widespread and lasted for centuries.”
Although Matthew quotes Isaiah as prophesying the birth of Jesus from a virgin, Isaiah was really talking about a “young woman” of his own time who was about to give birth—not a virgin! The brother of Jesus named James remained in Jerusalem as the first leader and bishop of its church. James was probably an early Christian martyr, killed by anti-Christians during the 60s.
We must never forget to distinguish between the mythical Christ and the historical Jesus. Scholarship strives to shed more light on the latter.
Jesus' Family
Sermon by Rev. Dr. Robert Tucker
Summary by Helen Bennett
Since October is Family History Month, Dr. Tucker decided to enlighten us about the family of Jesus. This is a confusing account, as sources differ and no one is absolutely certain about the relationships. What we do know is that Jesus’ mother was Mary, and his step-father (supposedly!) was Joseph. His brother James is well known, but Jesus supposedly had four brothers and at least two sisters. The brothers named in the Gospels were James, Joses (or Joseph), Judas, and Simon, but the sisters are unnamed.
In December 2002 an exciting discovery was made! An ossuary (a burial box for bones) was found that dated to the year 63 CE, just three decades after the death of Jesus. The inscription on the ossuary said, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” The problem with this finding was that there were many people named James with fathers named Joseph, and the inscription was written by two different hands, leading scholars to think it was a forgery. (James had been stoned to death as a Jewish heretic in the year 62 CE.) Other ossuaries have been found that some believed belonged to the family of Jesus, but most scholars believed them to be fraudulent.
Dr. Tucker was astonished to learn that some Christians in his churches did not know that Jesus was a Jew! They also didn’t know that Joseph initially rejected Mary when he found out that she was pregnant, but not by him. An angel visited him in his dreams to tell him to stick with Mary, as she was with child by the Holy Spirit. Jesus was Mary’s first-born son, but there were several children after that (see above). The Catholic Church, wanting to preserve Mary’s virginity, asserted that those other children were Joseph’s by his first wife, or cousins of Jesus.
Joseph appears in the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John, and it is through his lineage that Jesus supposedly descended from King David, so that he could claim messiahship.This is strange, since he was supposedly not Joseph’s biological son. Some did call Joseph the “father of Jesus,” but Jesus was also referred to as the “son of Mary,” an unusual reference unless the father was unknown or had died. Mary was given an immaculate conception through her supposed mother Anna, so that she would not inherit original sin. Some anti-Christians claimed that Jesus was born of an illegitimate pregnancy, and others claimed that Panthera was the biological father of Jesus. These anti-Christian writings portray Mary as immoral and her son Jesus as a charlatan. “Such scurrilous attacks were widespread and lasted for centuries.”
Although Matthew quotes Isaiah as prophesying the birth of Jesus from a virgin, Isaiah was really talking about a “young woman” of his own time who was about to give birth—not a virgin! The brother of Jesus named James remained in Jerusalem as the first leader and bishop of its church. James was probably an early Christian martyr, killed by anti-Christians during the 60s.
We must never forget to distinguish between the mythical Christ and the historical Jesus. Scholarship strives to shed more light on the latter.
Dr. Steve Nolls
September 30:
Florida's Hispanic Heritage
Sermon by Dr. Steve Noll,
professor of American and Florida history at the University of Florida
Beginning with the arrival of Ponce de Leon, who landed on Florida’s East Coast in 1513 somewhere between St. Augustine and Miami, Florida was under Spanish rule for over 300 years before being ceded to the United States by Spain in 1821 and becoming a US state in 1845, and reminders of our Hispanic heritage are all around us.
No one knows exactly where Ponce de Leon landed, with many locations along the East Coast claiming to be the spot, but a much more lasting impact on Florida came with the arrival of Hernando de Soto in 1539. He and his men landed somewhere in Tampa Bay and began an exploratory trek north through the center of Florida that took them up into Georgia and the Carolinas, with de Soto declaring the entire territory “La Florida.” They brought wild hogs with them for food, and the hogs, of course, reproduced along the way, leaving descendants that can still be found in every part of Florida.
The orange was also brought to Florida by the Spanish, soon becoming so ubiquitous that it is now the item most associated with Florida, appearing on our state seal and our automobile tags. The Spanish also brought cattle, and cattle ranching became a huge industry in the state, with Florida supplying most of the beef to Confederate troops during the Civil War. Many of our orange groves and cattle ranches have now given way to housing developments as Florida’s population expanded, but both are still important industries in the state. Another product introduced by the Spanish was sugar cane, and there are several old sugar mills around the state that are now historical sites. Sugar cane is still grown in the area around Lake Okeechobee.
The Spanish also built missions and military forts around the state, and many of these survive as historic sites. Two of the most notable are Castilla de San Marcos in St. Augustine and Fort Mose, just north of there, which was a refuge for blacks escaping from slavery. If they became Catholic, they were given their freedom by the Spanish.
One of the most interesting people in Florida history, not mentioned in most history books, is Francisco Menendez, born in Africa and brought to South Carolina as a slave. He escaped and came to Florida where he became Catholic and was granted his freedom. He became leader of Fort Mose, but the fort was overrun and destroyed by the British in 1740. Menendez went to sea on a Spanish ship to raid English vessels but was recaptured and sold back into slavery. Ransomed by the Spanish, he returned to Florida and rebuilt Fort Mose in 1752. When the British took control of East Florida, Menendez, along with most of the Fort Mose community, evacuated to Cuba where they established a free black community there.
Today Hispanic influences abound all over Florida, especially in places such as Ybor City, where a huge Cuban cigar factory is located, and in Miami, where Cubans escaping the dictatorship of Fidel Castro have brought their language and culture with them to their new home. Many Cuban Americans have become prominent in Florida politics, notably Mel Martinez and Marco Rubio.
More recently, Florida has seen a new influx of Puerto Ricans escaping the effects of Hurricane Maria, and Florida’s Hispanic heritage will continue to be a large part of Florida culture. …rr
Florida's Hispanic Heritage
Sermon by Dr. Steve Noll,
professor of American and Florida history at the University of Florida
Beginning with the arrival of Ponce de Leon, who landed on Florida’s East Coast in 1513 somewhere between St. Augustine and Miami, Florida was under Spanish rule for over 300 years before being ceded to the United States by Spain in 1821 and becoming a US state in 1845, and reminders of our Hispanic heritage are all around us.
No one knows exactly where Ponce de Leon landed, with many locations along the East Coast claiming to be the spot, but a much more lasting impact on Florida came with the arrival of Hernando de Soto in 1539. He and his men landed somewhere in Tampa Bay and began an exploratory trek north through the center of Florida that took them up into Georgia and the Carolinas, with de Soto declaring the entire territory “La Florida.” They brought wild hogs with them for food, and the hogs, of course, reproduced along the way, leaving descendants that can still be found in every part of Florida.
The orange was also brought to Florida by the Spanish, soon becoming so ubiquitous that it is now the item most associated with Florida, appearing on our state seal and our automobile tags. The Spanish also brought cattle, and cattle ranching became a huge industry in the state, with Florida supplying most of the beef to Confederate troops during the Civil War. Many of our orange groves and cattle ranches have now given way to housing developments as Florida’s population expanded, but both are still important industries in the state. Another product introduced by the Spanish was sugar cane, and there are several old sugar mills around the state that are now historical sites. Sugar cane is still grown in the area around Lake Okeechobee.
The Spanish also built missions and military forts around the state, and many of these survive as historic sites. Two of the most notable are Castilla de San Marcos in St. Augustine and Fort Mose, just north of there, which was a refuge for blacks escaping from slavery. If they became Catholic, they were given their freedom by the Spanish.
One of the most interesting people in Florida history, not mentioned in most history books, is Francisco Menendez, born in Africa and brought to South Carolina as a slave. He escaped and came to Florida where he became Catholic and was granted his freedom. He became leader of Fort Mose, but the fort was overrun and destroyed by the British in 1740. Menendez went to sea on a Spanish ship to raid English vessels but was recaptured and sold back into slavery. Ransomed by the Spanish, he returned to Florida and rebuilt Fort Mose in 1752. When the British took control of East Florida, Menendez, along with most of the Fort Mose community, evacuated to Cuba where they established a free black community there.
Today Hispanic influences abound all over Florida, especially in places such as Ybor City, where a huge Cuban cigar factory is located, and in Miami, where Cubans escaping the dictatorship of Fidel Castro have brought their language and culture with them to their new home. Many Cuban Americans have become prominent in Florida politics, notably Mel Martinez and Marco Rubio.
More recently, Florida has seen a new influx of Puerto Ricans escaping the effects of Hurricane Maria, and Florida’s Hispanic heritage will continue to be a large part of Florida culture. …rr
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September 23:
The Interconnection of Joy and Sorrow Sermon by Rev. Bob MacDonald |
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Throughout his many years as a Methodist minister, the Reverend Bob MacDonald always embraced his “inner UU” by searching and questioning what “religion” meant to him. After retiring from the Methodist ministry, he became part-time minister at the Treasure Coast UU in Stuart, FL, but is now retired for the second time.
As part of his quest to explore and enlarge on his faith, he spent a lot of time in bookstores pouring over self-help books, and one statement that he always comes back to is Bertrand Russell’s preface to his autobiography, in which he states that love and knowledge led him upward toward the heavens while suffering brought him back down to earth. For MacDonald, religion is about compassion and vulnerability. The Latin root of the word “religion” means “choice,” and religion is what we would stake our lives on as being true.
For Jews and Muslims, religion means “right practice,” while for Christians, religion means “right belief,” so there have always been those within the Christian faith who have been labeled heretics because of their unorthodox beliefs. The history of heresy within Christianity is a fertile field of study, and as a young theological student and a young minister, MacDonald was drawn to learning more about these heretics.
One such group was the Patripassians, who believed that God and Jesus, both being God, were not two separate persons, and that God suffered with Jesus on the cross. Because this went against Trinitarian beliefs, they were considered heretics, but MacDonald likes the idea that the Universe has a heart, that our pain and suffering are felt by a larger power. Our deepest joys in life make us vulnerable to its deepest sorrows, and when we care about another person, we feel that person’s joys and sorrows as our own.
MacDonald gave two examples of this vulnerability. In the first, a movie called Dad that starred Jack Lemmon as the father and Ted Danson as his son, the father is in a hospital bed being visited by the son. He is telling his son about old baseball games when he makes the comment that he regrets not having held his son more when he was a child, and Ted Danson crawls into the hospital bed beside him so that his father can hold him for one last time. The other was a personal story of when he was waiting at the hospital with his 18-year-old daughter who was about to undergo an emergency appendectomy. His daughter was crying from the pain and fear of what was to come, and he was also crying for the same reasons, plus an added feeling of guilt for having told her during the night to go back to bed, that it was only a stomachache.
In conclusion, MacDonald asked what we could do to make ourselves more vulnerable to others and act to relieve some of the suffering we see in the world. During his years as a minister, one of his most important roles was to counsel his congregants through their sorrows and share their grief. He cited a recent statistic that America has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prisoners. What does that say about us as a nation? A good example of someone stepping up to help others is Malala, the Pakistani girl who was shot for being an advocate for female education. The animal world also needs our compassion and protection. The question is not, “What can we do?” but “How can we not do whatever we can to alleviate suffering?” That compassion and vulnerability is, for MacDonald, what religion is all about. …rr
As part of his quest to explore and enlarge on his faith, he spent a lot of time in bookstores pouring over self-help books, and one statement that he always comes back to is Bertrand Russell’s preface to his autobiography, in which he states that love and knowledge led him upward toward the heavens while suffering brought him back down to earth. For MacDonald, religion is about compassion and vulnerability. The Latin root of the word “religion” means “choice,” and religion is what we would stake our lives on as being true.
For Jews and Muslims, religion means “right practice,” while for Christians, religion means “right belief,” so there have always been those within the Christian faith who have been labeled heretics because of their unorthodox beliefs. The history of heresy within Christianity is a fertile field of study, and as a young theological student and a young minister, MacDonald was drawn to learning more about these heretics.
One such group was the Patripassians, who believed that God and Jesus, both being God, were not two separate persons, and that God suffered with Jesus on the cross. Because this went against Trinitarian beliefs, they were considered heretics, but MacDonald likes the idea that the Universe has a heart, that our pain and suffering are felt by a larger power. Our deepest joys in life make us vulnerable to its deepest sorrows, and when we care about another person, we feel that person’s joys and sorrows as our own.
MacDonald gave two examples of this vulnerability. In the first, a movie called Dad that starred Jack Lemmon as the father and Ted Danson as his son, the father is in a hospital bed being visited by the son. He is telling his son about old baseball games when he makes the comment that he regrets not having held his son more when he was a child, and Ted Danson crawls into the hospital bed beside him so that his father can hold him for one last time. The other was a personal story of when he was waiting at the hospital with his 18-year-old daughter who was about to undergo an emergency appendectomy. His daughter was crying from the pain and fear of what was to come, and he was also crying for the same reasons, plus an added feeling of guilt for having told her during the night to go back to bed, that it was only a stomachache.
In conclusion, MacDonald asked what we could do to make ourselves more vulnerable to others and act to relieve some of the suffering we see in the world. During his years as a minister, one of his most important roles was to counsel his congregants through their sorrows and share their grief. He cited a recent statistic that America has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prisoners. What does that say about us as a nation? A good example of someone stepping up to help others is Malala, the Pakistani girl who was shot for being an advocate for female education. The animal world also needs our compassion and protection. The question is not, “What can we do?” but “How can we not do whatever we can to alleviate suffering?” That compassion and vulnerability is, for MacDonald, what religion is all about. …rr
Ralph Waldo Emerson
September 16:
A Dialog with Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sermon by Rev. Paul Johnson
Unitarian minister Ralph Waldo Emerson, famous for his lectures and writings, is perhaps number one on our list of illustrious Unitarian forebears. On Sept. 16th, the Reverend Paul S. Johnson, who holds Doctor of Ministry and Doctor of Divinity degrees from Meadville/Lombard Theological School in Chicago, engaged in a dialogue with Emerson by playing both himself and Emerson as he asked and answered questions about Emerson’s views on various topics. Rev. Johnson has served UU congregations in MN, MD, VA, NJ, and NY, and is now developmental minister at the Treasure Coast UU Congregation in Stuart, FL. He has served as president of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, as a member of the UUA's Commission on Social Witness, and as a board member of Meadville/Lombard.
Born in Boston in 1803, the second of eight children, of whom five lived to adulthood, Emerson was the son of a Unitarian minister and inheritor of a family history of ministry going back six generations. His father died when Ralph Waldo was eight, leaving his mother to raise the children alone. The mother, a pious Calvinist for whom death was ever present, slept in a coffin and wore a burial shroud. At age nine, Ralph Waldo went to Latin school, and at age fourteen, he entered Harvard University.
Pulled into ministry by family tradition, he entered Harvard Divinity School, but dropped out due to poor health, which led him to seek a warmer climate. After his health improved, he returned to Boston and became minister at 2nd Unitarian Church, but he resigned after two years, having disagreements with some of the church’s traditions such as Bible study and the administering of the Lord’s Supper. During this time, he also married, but his wife died of tuberculosis after less than two years of marriage.
After traveling in Europe, where he met John Stuart Mill and Thomas Carlyle, among others, he returned to Boston, and became a popular lecturer and writer, renowned for his erudite speaking style. He remarried and had four children.
In his lectures, Emerson focused on three main ideas: the Oversoul, Compensation, and Self-reliance, and in the roles of both himself and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rev. Johnson engaged in a dialogue with Emerson about his views on these ideas, asking questions and then answering them as Emerson would have.
For Emerson, the Oversoul was the concept that God, or the Deity, infuses everything and is a part of each of us. This Oversoul speaks to our intellect and our common human experience. Evil sometimes creeps in, but that evil is balanced out by the good, leading to his concept of Compensation. We should be Self-reliant, trusting our thoughts and instincts.
Johnson asked Emerson about his seeming lack of a tragic sense, and Emerson responded that he had had his moments of despair but had overcome them through his notion of Compensation, noting that even the financial titans of the day like Rockefeller and Carnegie had become philanthropists. Johnson then asked him about the wisdom of his recommendation of trusting one’s first thought, and Emerson replied that that might be literary hyperbole, but that life should be an exploration of new ideas rather than just relying on the established ideas of the past. Johnson countered by asking about his poem “Grace,” which talks about thanking God for the “defenses” that He had set (example, custom, fear), and Emerson conceded that sometimes it was wise to seek the counsel of others before acting.
Finally, Johnson asked Emerson why he had not been more of an advocate for social justice, speaking out on issues such as slavery and women’s rights. (Emerson was an abolitionist and did speak out against slavery but was not as vocal as others in the movement.) Emerson’s answer was that his calling was to minister to the soul. Working for social justice was important, but so was nurturing the soul through such things as poetry and music. … rr
A Dialog with Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sermon by Rev. Paul Johnson
Unitarian minister Ralph Waldo Emerson, famous for his lectures and writings, is perhaps number one on our list of illustrious Unitarian forebears. On Sept. 16th, the Reverend Paul S. Johnson, who holds Doctor of Ministry and Doctor of Divinity degrees from Meadville/Lombard Theological School in Chicago, engaged in a dialogue with Emerson by playing both himself and Emerson as he asked and answered questions about Emerson’s views on various topics. Rev. Johnson has served UU congregations in MN, MD, VA, NJ, and NY, and is now developmental minister at the Treasure Coast UU Congregation in Stuart, FL. He has served as president of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, as a member of the UUA's Commission on Social Witness, and as a board member of Meadville/Lombard.
Born in Boston in 1803, the second of eight children, of whom five lived to adulthood, Emerson was the son of a Unitarian minister and inheritor of a family history of ministry going back six generations. His father died when Ralph Waldo was eight, leaving his mother to raise the children alone. The mother, a pious Calvinist for whom death was ever present, slept in a coffin and wore a burial shroud. At age nine, Ralph Waldo went to Latin school, and at age fourteen, he entered Harvard University.
Pulled into ministry by family tradition, he entered Harvard Divinity School, but dropped out due to poor health, which led him to seek a warmer climate. After his health improved, he returned to Boston and became minister at 2nd Unitarian Church, but he resigned after two years, having disagreements with some of the church’s traditions such as Bible study and the administering of the Lord’s Supper. During this time, he also married, but his wife died of tuberculosis after less than two years of marriage.
After traveling in Europe, where he met John Stuart Mill and Thomas Carlyle, among others, he returned to Boston, and became a popular lecturer and writer, renowned for his erudite speaking style. He remarried and had four children.
In his lectures, Emerson focused on three main ideas: the Oversoul, Compensation, and Self-reliance, and in the roles of both himself and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rev. Johnson engaged in a dialogue with Emerson about his views on these ideas, asking questions and then answering them as Emerson would have.
For Emerson, the Oversoul was the concept that God, or the Deity, infuses everything and is a part of each of us. This Oversoul speaks to our intellect and our common human experience. Evil sometimes creeps in, but that evil is balanced out by the good, leading to his concept of Compensation. We should be Self-reliant, trusting our thoughts and instincts.
Johnson asked Emerson about his seeming lack of a tragic sense, and Emerson responded that he had had his moments of despair but had overcome them through his notion of Compensation, noting that even the financial titans of the day like Rockefeller and Carnegie had become philanthropists. Johnson then asked him about the wisdom of his recommendation of trusting one’s first thought, and Emerson replied that that might be literary hyperbole, but that life should be an exploration of new ideas rather than just relying on the established ideas of the past. Johnson countered by asking about his poem “Grace,” which talks about thanking God for the “defenses” that He had set (example, custom, fear), and Emerson conceded that sometimes it was wise to seek the counsel of others before acting.
Finally, Johnson asked Emerson why he had not been more of an advocate for social justice, speaking out on issues such as slavery and women’s rights. (Emerson was an abolitionist and did speak out against slavery but was not as vocal as others in the movement.) Emerson’s answer was that his calling was to minister to the soul. Working for social justice was important, but so was nurturing the soul through such things as poetry and music. … rr
September 9:
Perspectives on Death
Sermon by Karen Atlas
What do you think happens after death? Does death frighten you? These questions were posed by FFP member Karen Atlas on Sept. 9. After a brief summary of perspectives on death from various religions, she concentrated on the Unitarian Universalist perspective and shared some writings on the topic, ending with a beautiful reflection on death that she saw in a Facebook posting from Casey Gilbert, a former member of FFP.
After reading a poem by John Updike about the death of his wife, she told us about the most joyous funeral she had ever attended, a service for a fundamentalist Christian who had been suffering from cancer and whose family was sure they would be reunited with in Heaven.
Muslims also believe that earthly life is only a preparation for the next realm of existence, and death is merely movement from one world to another. Hindus believe in rebirth and reincarnation of souls, and for Buddhists, birth and death are illusions. Karma (one’s actions in past existences) determines a person’s fate in future states of existence, and Nirvana, a transcendent state in which there is no suffering, desire, or sense of self, is the final goal.
In Judaism, death is not a tragedy, even when it occurs early in life or through unfortunate circumstances. It is a natural process and part of God’s plan. Judaism is primarily focused on life here and now rather than the afterlife, so there is a lot of room for personal interpretation of what happens after death. Pagans view the cycle of birth and death as a never-ending, ever turning wheel.
Humanists believe our death marks the end of our personal existence. This conviction is often the spur to making the most of the time we have, filling our lives with meaning and purpose. For Unitarian Universalists, views about life after death are influenced by both science and spiritual traditions. While some of us live with the assumption there is no life after death, others may view death as an open question, wondering if our minds will have any awareness after we are gone. Few of us believe in divine judgment after death, and we reject the idea of eternal damnation.
Karen then read a poem she wrote about her father’s death. A man who “always raised his glass to life” and who believed that “good [is]its own reward,” she describes him as having “no Christ cushions” as he says goodbye.
Leavening the topic with some humor, Karen quoted Woody Allen, who said, “I’m not afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens,” and “I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen. I want to live on in my apartment.”
As she gets older, Karen has begun to reflect more on her own death. She quoted from a blog by Margaret Manning, who lists six ways to overcome our fear about death. Celebrate life, realize and accept that death is natural, read literature and self-help guides about death, adopt rituals and spirituality, live well, and plan for your passing.
For those of us who have children and grandchildren, we live on in them, but what if we do not have descendants? In his book, Staring at the Sun, Irvin Yalom says that we all create ripples that may affect others for years, even generations to come. Karen remembers a retired librarian who had no children and lived in an apartment in the woods with her sister, but this librarian introduced her to books by authors she had known, which led to her becoming a teacher who, in turn, passed on this love for books to her own students.
Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for Evolution, says, “We are made of stardust,” and goes on to say that there is something profoundly right with the fact that we grow old and die, making us clean up unfinished business before it is too late, and leading us to have meaningful conversations with family and friends, including expressions of gratitude, apologies, and forgiveness.
Karen ended her talk with the reading Casey Gilbert posted on Facebook. Casey had been listening to a podcast of a UU service in South Australia given by Rev. Rob MacPherson, but the words, which were read by a church member, come from Father George Coyne [reproduced below]…rr
------------------------------
"Compared to the great vastness of the cosmos, the ocean of deep time, individual existence is a blip, a bubble in the foam on the surface of a flowing river. We are a momentary arrangement of atoms and molecules, an arrangement that lives and moves, to be sure,—an arrangement that thinks, laughs, appreciates beauty, dreams, and loves—but a mere arrangement nonetheless, a transient state, an ephemeral gathering.
“Soon the blip will go out, the bubble will pop, the arrangement will dissolve, molecular bonds released by entropy. Consciousness will cease. But the molecules that once were you will still exist. The atoms that made up your body—iron, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, all the heavy elements forged in the crucibles of dying stars—will remain. Liberated from their temporary home, they will rejoin the rest of the planet, taking new shapes, finding new arrangements, becoming part of other life.
“You will become merged with everything. You will become part of the trees that grow wherever your ashes are scattered, joining the ecosystem of the forest. You will be in the slow green heartwood of the trunks as they patiently tick off the centuries, in the buds that burst forth in spring and in the leaves that explode with color in autumn.
“You will be the sparkle of sunlight on the surface of a flowing mountain stream. You will sink into the earth and mix with the groundwater, eventually flowing back and rejoining the ocean where all life on this planet ultimately began. You will be in the waves that crash on the shore, in the warm sheltered tidal pools, in the coral reefs that bloom with life, and in the depths that echo with whale songs.
“You will be subducted into the planet’s core and join the three-hundred-million-year cycle of the continental plates.
“You will rise into the sky and, in the fullness of time, become dispersed throughout the atmosphere, until every breath will contain part of you.
“And billions of years from now, when our sun swells and blasts the Earth’s atmosphere away, you will be there, streaming into space to rejoin the stars that gave your atoms birth. And perhaps some day, billions of years yet beyond that, on some distant planet beneath bright alien skies, an atom that once was part of you will take part in a series of chemical reactions that may ultimately lead to new life—life that will in time leave the sea that gave it birth, crawl up onto the beach, and look up into the cosmos and wonder where it came from.
“And the cycle will begin again.”
By George V. Coyne, S.J., a Jesuit priest, astronomer, and former director of the Vatican Observatory and head of the observatory's research group which is based at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. Since January 2012, he has served as McDevitt Chair of Religious Philosophy at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY. Father Coyne is the author Wayfarers in the Cosmos: the Human Quest for Meaning.
Perspectives on Death
Sermon by Karen Atlas
What do you think happens after death? Does death frighten you? These questions were posed by FFP member Karen Atlas on Sept. 9. After a brief summary of perspectives on death from various religions, she concentrated on the Unitarian Universalist perspective and shared some writings on the topic, ending with a beautiful reflection on death that she saw in a Facebook posting from Casey Gilbert, a former member of FFP.
After reading a poem by John Updike about the death of his wife, she told us about the most joyous funeral she had ever attended, a service for a fundamentalist Christian who had been suffering from cancer and whose family was sure they would be reunited with in Heaven.
Muslims also believe that earthly life is only a preparation for the next realm of existence, and death is merely movement from one world to another. Hindus believe in rebirth and reincarnation of souls, and for Buddhists, birth and death are illusions. Karma (one’s actions in past existences) determines a person’s fate in future states of existence, and Nirvana, a transcendent state in which there is no suffering, desire, or sense of self, is the final goal.
In Judaism, death is not a tragedy, even when it occurs early in life or through unfortunate circumstances. It is a natural process and part of God’s plan. Judaism is primarily focused on life here and now rather than the afterlife, so there is a lot of room for personal interpretation of what happens after death. Pagans view the cycle of birth and death as a never-ending, ever turning wheel.
Humanists believe our death marks the end of our personal existence. This conviction is often the spur to making the most of the time we have, filling our lives with meaning and purpose. For Unitarian Universalists, views about life after death are influenced by both science and spiritual traditions. While some of us live with the assumption there is no life after death, others may view death as an open question, wondering if our minds will have any awareness after we are gone. Few of us believe in divine judgment after death, and we reject the idea of eternal damnation.
Karen then read a poem she wrote about her father’s death. A man who “always raised his glass to life” and who believed that “good [is]its own reward,” she describes him as having “no Christ cushions” as he says goodbye.
Leavening the topic with some humor, Karen quoted Woody Allen, who said, “I’m not afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens,” and “I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen. I want to live on in my apartment.”
As she gets older, Karen has begun to reflect more on her own death. She quoted from a blog by Margaret Manning, who lists six ways to overcome our fear about death. Celebrate life, realize and accept that death is natural, read literature and self-help guides about death, adopt rituals and spirituality, live well, and plan for your passing.
For those of us who have children and grandchildren, we live on in them, but what if we do not have descendants? In his book, Staring at the Sun, Irvin Yalom says that we all create ripples that may affect others for years, even generations to come. Karen remembers a retired librarian who had no children and lived in an apartment in the woods with her sister, but this librarian introduced her to books by authors she had known, which led to her becoming a teacher who, in turn, passed on this love for books to her own students.
Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for Evolution, says, “We are made of stardust,” and goes on to say that there is something profoundly right with the fact that we grow old and die, making us clean up unfinished business before it is too late, and leading us to have meaningful conversations with family and friends, including expressions of gratitude, apologies, and forgiveness.
Karen ended her talk with the reading Casey Gilbert posted on Facebook. Casey had been listening to a podcast of a UU service in South Australia given by Rev. Rob MacPherson, but the words, which were read by a church member, come from Father George Coyne [reproduced below]…rr
------------------------------
"Compared to the great vastness of the cosmos, the ocean of deep time, individual existence is a blip, a bubble in the foam on the surface of a flowing river. We are a momentary arrangement of atoms and molecules, an arrangement that lives and moves, to be sure,—an arrangement that thinks, laughs, appreciates beauty, dreams, and loves—but a mere arrangement nonetheless, a transient state, an ephemeral gathering.
“Soon the blip will go out, the bubble will pop, the arrangement will dissolve, molecular bonds released by entropy. Consciousness will cease. But the molecules that once were you will still exist. The atoms that made up your body—iron, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, all the heavy elements forged in the crucibles of dying stars—will remain. Liberated from their temporary home, they will rejoin the rest of the planet, taking new shapes, finding new arrangements, becoming part of other life.
“You will become merged with everything. You will become part of the trees that grow wherever your ashes are scattered, joining the ecosystem of the forest. You will be in the slow green heartwood of the trunks as they patiently tick off the centuries, in the buds that burst forth in spring and in the leaves that explode with color in autumn.
“You will be the sparkle of sunlight on the surface of a flowing mountain stream. You will sink into the earth and mix with the groundwater, eventually flowing back and rejoining the ocean where all life on this planet ultimately began. You will be in the waves that crash on the shore, in the warm sheltered tidal pools, in the coral reefs that bloom with life, and in the depths that echo with whale songs.
“You will be subducted into the planet’s core and join the three-hundred-million-year cycle of the continental plates.
“You will rise into the sky and, in the fullness of time, become dispersed throughout the atmosphere, until every breath will contain part of you.
“And billions of years from now, when our sun swells and blasts the Earth’s atmosphere away, you will be there, streaming into space to rejoin the stars that gave your atoms birth. And perhaps some day, billions of years yet beyond that, on some distant planet beneath bright alien skies, an atom that once was part of you will take part in a series of chemical reactions that may ultimately lead to new life—life that will in time leave the sea that gave it birth, crawl up onto the beach, and look up into the cosmos and wonder where it came from.
“And the cycle will begin again.”
By George V. Coyne, S.J., a Jesuit priest, astronomer, and former director of the Vatican Observatory and head of the observatory's research group which is based at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. Since January 2012, he has served as McDevitt Chair of Religious Philosophy at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY. Father Coyne is the author Wayfarers in the Cosmos: the Human Quest for Meaning.
Dr. Scott Tilley
|
September 2:
Artificial Intelligence and Society Sermon by Dr. Scott Tilley, Professor Emeritus FIT A central tenet of Unitarian Universalism is our welcoming embrace of diversity, but does that include welcoming robots who might someday be a part of our congregations? That was the intriguing question posed by Dr. Scott Tilley, professor emeritus at Florida Institute of Technology, who was our guest speaker on Sept. 2, 2018. |
Artificial intelligence is defined as the intelligence exhibited by machines as a result of their programming by humans, and this intelligence is growing exponentially as newer and faster systems are developed. Robots have already taken over many jobs once performed by blue-collar workers, and now they are taking over the jobs of white-collar workers as well. AI programs already write news, sports, and weather reports, and newer programs can now create an original story in the style of well-known authors such as Ernest Hemingway or Steven King. Computer programs can write as well as perform symphonies, and robot bands go on tour, playing to crowds of fans. One such band, Compressorhead, has a robot drummer with about sixteen arms, and a guitarist with dozens of fingers, adding to their musical speed and abilities. Holograms of dead musical artists are also going on tour, enabling audiences to experience their music as if they were still alive.
As we know from history, people have been devalued in the past, with American slaves counting as three-fifths of a person and with interracial marriage illegal across the nation until 1967. Gay marriage was not legalized until 2015. With the advent of artificial intelligence, will humans become devalued as robots take over many of our jobs? We have already seen Deep Blue beat the best chess player in the world, and artificial intelligence is only going to increase. Would you go to an NFL or NBA game where half the players were robots? There are, Tilley reported, already robotic sports competitions being held. Many of us have Alexa in our homes right now. Is Alexa intelligent? Certainly she (it) can answer questions much faster than we can come up with the information.
The most immediate problem that Tilley sees with artificial intelligence is the loss of jobs as machines take over so much of the work that humans have done in the past. Even more concerning is that the people who can least afford to lose their jobs will be most affected, such as those working at call centers.
With LGBTQ rights and particularly transgender issues in the spotlight right now, the rise of intelligent robots makes gender a very fluid issue. What gender is Alexa? “She” has a female voice, but the program that enables her to work has no gender, and “she” could just as easily be a “he.” In the movie, Ex Machina, the human-looking robot Ava gets up each morning and puts on her skin, which can be any color she chooses, so race and ethnicity also become fluid and no longer relevant. Robots can be given any form, human or otherwise, but outward form has no bearing on their intelligence. Studies have shown that 15% of people who have conversations with Alexa live alone, so we might see human-robot marriages in the future, or we might have robots attending our UU services. Would our welcoming attitude extend to those situations?
Ray Kurzweil has become well-known for his predictions about AI, mainly concerning the technological singularity, which posits explosive growth in the intelligence capabilities of machines to the point that they can outsmart the human brain in computational functions. We already have programs that write other programs, and machines have been shown to “think” in ways that we humans don’t understand. In the future, will we be in charge of them, or will they be in charge of us? Who will be in control?
The future holds some frightening unknowns, especially concerning the ethical framework of these intelligent machines. We humans can program them with our ethics, but those programs can be hacked and replaced with others. We can only wait and see what happens. …rr
As we know from history, people have been devalued in the past, with American slaves counting as three-fifths of a person and with interracial marriage illegal across the nation until 1967. Gay marriage was not legalized until 2015. With the advent of artificial intelligence, will humans become devalued as robots take over many of our jobs? We have already seen Deep Blue beat the best chess player in the world, and artificial intelligence is only going to increase. Would you go to an NFL or NBA game where half the players were robots? There are, Tilley reported, already robotic sports competitions being held. Many of us have Alexa in our homes right now. Is Alexa intelligent? Certainly she (it) can answer questions much faster than we can come up with the information.
The most immediate problem that Tilley sees with artificial intelligence is the loss of jobs as machines take over so much of the work that humans have done in the past. Even more concerning is that the people who can least afford to lose their jobs will be most affected, such as those working at call centers.
With LGBTQ rights and particularly transgender issues in the spotlight right now, the rise of intelligent robots makes gender a very fluid issue. What gender is Alexa? “She” has a female voice, but the program that enables her to work has no gender, and “she” could just as easily be a “he.” In the movie, Ex Machina, the human-looking robot Ava gets up each morning and puts on her skin, which can be any color she chooses, so race and ethnicity also become fluid and no longer relevant. Robots can be given any form, human or otherwise, but outward form has no bearing on their intelligence. Studies have shown that 15% of people who have conversations with Alexa live alone, so we might see human-robot marriages in the future, or we might have robots attending our UU services. Would our welcoming attitude extend to those situations?
Ray Kurzweil has become well-known for his predictions about AI, mainly concerning the technological singularity, which posits explosive growth in the intelligence capabilities of machines to the point that they can outsmart the human brain in computational functions. We already have programs that write other programs, and machines have been shown to “think” in ways that we humans don’t understand. In the future, will we be in charge of them, or will they be in charge of us? Who will be in control?
The future holds some frightening unknowns, especially concerning the ethical framework of these intelligent machines. We humans can program them with our ethics, but those programs can be hacked and replaced with others. We can only wait and see what happens. …rr
August 26:
Jonah's Abiding Relevance
Sermon by Rev. Dr. Robert Tucker
Summary by Helen Bennett
The Book of Jonah, perhaps the shortest in the Jewish Bible (the Old Testament), is a parable. Jesus was not the only one to teach in parables; there were many in the Jewish Bible before the time of Jesus. A parable is a short, fictional story designed to teach a lesson to an audience whose morality is questionable. Some of the parables of Jesus were the tale of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son; in the Old Testament, Nathan told King David a story about a man who took a lover and sent her husband to his death. David didn't realize it when he condemned the man, but Nathan explained that it referred to him, King David himself.
Unfortunately, there have always been people who take the Bible literally. They fail to see themselves in the lesson being taught by means of a parable. Taking the Bible literally is always a fallacy, as much of it was not written to be understood as factual. Biblical scholarship can help us discern which parts were meant to be historical and which were fictional stories or myths.
Jonah was a prophet who didn't want the enemies of the Jews to be shown mercy by the Lord. His story takes place among post-exilic Jews of the Babylon captivity, around 600 BCE. When the Persians freed the Jews after 70 years in Babylon, the ones who returned to Jerusalem became fiercely nationalistic and ethnocentric. They didn't admit any gentiles into their ranks; even gentile wives and their children had to be put aside. The Jews thought they would anger God if they were not exclusive-but just the opposite was the case! God wanted the Jews to mingle with the gentiles and to be "a light unto the nations."
Jonah was instructed by the Lord to go to Ninevah in Assyria, and to convert the natives from their evil ways. He refused to do this, as the Assyrians and Jews were bitter enemies. Instead, Jonah set sail on a ship to Spain, but when God sent a life-threatening storm, he sacrificed himself and was cast overboard. Jonah landed inside a big fish, and was there repenting for three days. When he came out of the fish he was again commissioned to go to Ninevah and tell the people about the Lord. He did this, and the Ninevites repented, wearing sackcloth and ashes, but it made Jonah sad. When a protective gourd that was shading him from the sun died, Jonah was devastated. God chastised Jonah because he cared more for a gourd than the people of Ninevah!
Dr. Tucker lets us know that not only those on the Religious Right, who despise other religions and points of view, are guilty-but Unitarian Universalists can have Jonah's guilt, too. The Religious Right insists on banning abortion, including "under God"in the Pledge of Allegiance, and allowing prayer in schools. But Unitarian Universalists also sometimes reject other religions, not realizing the good they do, and think we are better than they. "When we proclaim, 'we will not tolerate intolerance, when we become so rational that we fail to recognize the truth and goodness that other religions possess,'" we are guilty of the same intolerance found in the story of Jonah.
...hb
Jonah's Abiding Relevance
Sermon by Rev. Dr. Robert Tucker
Summary by Helen Bennett
The Book of Jonah, perhaps the shortest in the Jewish Bible (the Old Testament), is a parable. Jesus was not the only one to teach in parables; there were many in the Jewish Bible before the time of Jesus. A parable is a short, fictional story designed to teach a lesson to an audience whose morality is questionable. Some of the parables of Jesus were the tale of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son; in the Old Testament, Nathan told King David a story about a man who took a lover and sent her husband to his death. David didn't realize it when he condemned the man, but Nathan explained that it referred to him, King David himself.
Unfortunately, there have always been people who take the Bible literally. They fail to see themselves in the lesson being taught by means of a parable. Taking the Bible literally is always a fallacy, as much of it was not written to be understood as factual. Biblical scholarship can help us discern which parts were meant to be historical and which were fictional stories or myths.
Jonah was a prophet who didn't want the enemies of the Jews to be shown mercy by the Lord. His story takes place among post-exilic Jews of the Babylon captivity, around 600 BCE. When the Persians freed the Jews after 70 years in Babylon, the ones who returned to Jerusalem became fiercely nationalistic and ethnocentric. They didn't admit any gentiles into their ranks; even gentile wives and their children had to be put aside. The Jews thought they would anger God if they were not exclusive-but just the opposite was the case! God wanted the Jews to mingle with the gentiles and to be "a light unto the nations."
Jonah was instructed by the Lord to go to Ninevah in Assyria, and to convert the natives from their evil ways. He refused to do this, as the Assyrians and Jews were bitter enemies. Instead, Jonah set sail on a ship to Spain, but when God sent a life-threatening storm, he sacrificed himself and was cast overboard. Jonah landed inside a big fish, and was there repenting for three days. When he came out of the fish he was again commissioned to go to Ninevah and tell the people about the Lord. He did this, and the Ninevites repented, wearing sackcloth and ashes, but it made Jonah sad. When a protective gourd that was shading him from the sun died, Jonah was devastated. God chastised Jonah because he cared more for a gourd than the people of Ninevah!
Dr. Tucker lets us know that not only those on the Religious Right, who despise other religions and points of view, are guilty-but Unitarian Universalists can have Jonah's guilt, too. The Religious Right insists on banning abortion, including "under God"in the Pledge of Allegiance, and allowing prayer in schools. But Unitarian Universalists also sometimes reject other religions, not realizing the good they do, and think we are better than they. "When we proclaim, 'we will not tolerate intolerance, when we become so rational that we fail to recognize the truth and goodness that other religions possess,'" we are guilty of the same intolerance found in the story of Jonah.
...hb
August 19:
Einstein's Religion
Sermon by Dr. Fred Gregory
Our guest speaker on August 19, Dr. Fred Gregory, who holds a PhD from Harvard University and is a History of Science professor at the University of Florida, explained the religious views of Albert Einstein, the most famous scientist of our time. Although Einstein did not believe in a personal God who plays any role in influencing or determining the trajectory of our lives, he was not an atheist. Einstein compared his views on religion to a child walking into a huge library filled with books. The child knows that those books were written by someone, but he does not know who, and many of them are in languages he cannot read or speak. He also understands that they are arranged on the shelves in some pattern that is not yet known to him. For Einstein, this unknowable intelligence and order is how he conceives of God. Since everything is determined by the laws of nature, religion for Einstein was a belief in “a Spirit that reveals itself through the harmony of the universe.”
Einstein was born in Germany to Jewish parents, but he was sent to a Catholic school as a child because it offered the best education available. As a young teenager, he became captivated by science, due to large part to a series of books about science directed toward children. In one of those books, readers were taken on a tour of the planets by imagining they were riding on a telegraphic signal through space. Another book, Force and Matter, by Ludwig Buchner, and a gift of a magnet from his father also contributed to his scientific interests. When Albert was 15, his parents moved to northern Italy, leaving him behind in Germany to finish high school. However, he was not a good student and was disliked by his teachers because he did only what interested him, ignoring any subjects that he didn’t find useful, and he soon left school and joined his parents in Italy. After getting into a school in Zurich and finishing his education, he was unable to find a teaching job, so he ended up working in a patent office, where he began writing about scientific theory in his spare time.
Einstein faced two challenges to his definition of religion. The first goes back to Galileo’s law of relative motion—the idea that we are not aware of our own movement as long as that movement is uniform and we have no outside clues to indicate motion. For Galileo, this explained why we were not aware of the movement of the Earth around the Sun. This law holds true for all observers. But the problem comes when we go back to the case of a person riding on a beam of light through space. If the person is traveling at the speed of light and holds out a mirror, would that person be able to see his or her reflection? If there is no light in front of the person—since that person is traveling at the speed of light— there would be no reflection. But if that were true, then Galileo’s law of relative motion would not hold true, for the lack of a reflection would tell the traveler that he or she was moving. In order for Einstein to make this scenario fit into his idea of this “harmony of the cosmos” and the unchanging natural laws, he had to postulate that since the speed of light was constant, space and time would have to change, leading to his special theory of relativity, which became, about a decade later, his general theory of relativity.
The other challenge to Einstein’s religion came with the study of quantum theory, which has produced paradoxes that challenge the rationality that physicists had always found in the laws of nature. Einstein was fond of talking about God’s rationality, claiming that “God does not play dice with the universe,” to the point that fellow scientist Neils Bohr once told him, “Stop telling God what to do.”
Einstein never made his peace with quantum theory, and we will have to wait for further developments to see if his belief in “a Spirit that reveals itself through the harmony of the universe” holds true. …rr
Einstein's Religion
Sermon by Dr. Fred Gregory
Our guest speaker on August 19, Dr. Fred Gregory, who holds a PhD from Harvard University and is a History of Science professor at the University of Florida, explained the religious views of Albert Einstein, the most famous scientist of our time. Although Einstein did not believe in a personal God who plays any role in influencing or determining the trajectory of our lives, he was not an atheist. Einstein compared his views on religion to a child walking into a huge library filled with books. The child knows that those books were written by someone, but he does not know who, and many of them are in languages he cannot read or speak. He also understands that they are arranged on the shelves in some pattern that is not yet known to him. For Einstein, this unknowable intelligence and order is how he conceives of God. Since everything is determined by the laws of nature, religion for Einstein was a belief in “a Spirit that reveals itself through the harmony of the universe.”
Einstein was born in Germany to Jewish parents, but he was sent to a Catholic school as a child because it offered the best education available. As a young teenager, he became captivated by science, due to large part to a series of books about science directed toward children. In one of those books, readers were taken on a tour of the planets by imagining they were riding on a telegraphic signal through space. Another book, Force and Matter, by Ludwig Buchner, and a gift of a magnet from his father also contributed to his scientific interests. When Albert was 15, his parents moved to northern Italy, leaving him behind in Germany to finish high school. However, he was not a good student and was disliked by his teachers because he did only what interested him, ignoring any subjects that he didn’t find useful, and he soon left school and joined his parents in Italy. After getting into a school in Zurich and finishing his education, he was unable to find a teaching job, so he ended up working in a patent office, where he began writing about scientific theory in his spare time.
Einstein faced two challenges to his definition of religion. The first goes back to Galileo’s law of relative motion—the idea that we are not aware of our own movement as long as that movement is uniform and we have no outside clues to indicate motion. For Galileo, this explained why we were not aware of the movement of the Earth around the Sun. This law holds true for all observers. But the problem comes when we go back to the case of a person riding on a beam of light through space. If the person is traveling at the speed of light and holds out a mirror, would that person be able to see his or her reflection? If there is no light in front of the person—since that person is traveling at the speed of light— there would be no reflection. But if that were true, then Galileo’s law of relative motion would not hold true, for the lack of a reflection would tell the traveler that he or she was moving. In order for Einstein to make this scenario fit into his idea of this “harmony of the cosmos” and the unchanging natural laws, he had to postulate that since the speed of light was constant, space and time would have to change, leading to his special theory of relativity, which became, about a decade later, his general theory of relativity.
The other challenge to Einstein’s religion came with the study of quantum theory, which has produced paradoxes that challenge the rationality that physicists had always found in the laws of nature. Einstein was fond of talking about God’s rationality, claiming that “God does not play dice with the universe,” to the point that fellow scientist Neils Bohr once told him, “Stop telling God what to do.”
Einstein never made his peace with quantum theory, and we will have to wait for further developments to see if his belief in “a Spirit that reveals itself through the harmony of the universe” holds true. …rr
August 12, 2018:
“At the Corner of Church and State”
Reverend Janet Onnie
In 2012, the Reverend Janet Onnie, minister of the Tri-County UUs in Marion County, Florida, found herself behind a car sporting a bumper sticker that read, “A village in Kenya is missing its idiot.” A picture of Obama filled the “O” in the word “idiot.” As she continued behind the car, she noticed that it was filled with young people and that they pulled into a church parking lot. She wanted to follow and ask if they thought Jesus would display such a bumper sticker if he were living today, but she didn’t. In the political climate then, and even more so now, it has become increasingly difficult to argue with those whose political opinions are different from ours, and in most cases, no positive dialogue is possible.
Why, she asked, are UUs so quiet in today’s political climate? We have a long, proud history of standing up for injustice, and many of our past heroes have suffered for their positions, including giving up their lives. Today, however, we no longer speak out with much force or consistency. Is it because we don’t want to be like “them,” those on the other side whose opinions and behavior we find obnoxious? Our liberal religious voices have a place in the public square along with those in opposition, and we have a responsibility to stand up for our values.
Onnie cited five reasons for our failure to speak up. First, we often stumble over our best intentions. When so many UUs belong to the very establishment that we are criticizing (white, middle-class, educated, elite), it is hard to speak for the poor and the powerless. We UUs are known for our tolerance, and we are so afraid of saying anything that would offend anyone that we don’t say anything at all.
Second, there is a common agreement among UUs that speaking publicly about religion is not something we do. We are afraid to proselytize, so we keep silent while other religious leaders call good “evil” and evil “good” in the name of political expediency.
Third, we cannot agree on what it means to speak religiously. Our work for social justice is often viewed as being motivated by forces other than religion. However, said Onnie, we need to tie our actions in with our religious values, as UUA President Bill Sinkford did in 2006 when he spoke out about LGBTQ rights, saying that the “sin” is homophobia, not homosexuality. Reverend Onnie also cited the Reverend William Barber, a Christian minister, and his Moral Mondays movement started in North Carolina in 2013. Made up of a number of progressive religious groups, the movement organizes rallies each Monday to promote voting and civil rights, women’s rights, and other social and environmental issues. This movement has now spread to other states, and Onnie took part in one of the rallies.
Fourth, UUs cannot agree on the meaning of the separation of church and state or what role government should play in religious expression and practices. Because we are firm believers in such separation, we tend to downplay how our religious values influence our political opinions.
Finally, engaging in public policy discussions under an “empire” is a real challenge. The goal of an empire is to keep its citizens insecure and powerless, totally dependent upon their leader, and this creates a climate where dissent is frowned upon. However, Onnie said she believes that the impulse for democracy still beats throughout the country. To become a part of this drumbeat, we UUs need to clarify our religious identity and realize that social justice work is religious work. We need to carry our message into the public square by marching, writing letters, speaking out, and voting. She ended her talk with the hope that “May we have the bold courage to make it so.” …rr
“At the Corner of Church and State”
Reverend Janet Onnie
In 2012, the Reverend Janet Onnie, minister of the Tri-County UUs in Marion County, Florida, found herself behind a car sporting a bumper sticker that read, “A village in Kenya is missing its idiot.” A picture of Obama filled the “O” in the word “idiot.” As she continued behind the car, she noticed that it was filled with young people and that they pulled into a church parking lot. She wanted to follow and ask if they thought Jesus would display such a bumper sticker if he were living today, but she didn’t. In the political climate then, and even more so now, it has become increasingly difficult to argue with those whose political opinions are different from ours, and in most cases, no positive dialogue is possible.
Why, she asked, are UUs so quiet in today’s political climate? We have a long, proud history of standing up for injustice, and many of our past heroes have suffered for their positions, including giving up their lives. Today, however, we no longer speak out with much force or consistency. Is it because we don’t want to be like “them,” those on the other side whose opinions and behavior we find obnoxious? Our liberal religious voices have a place in the public square along with those in opposition, and we have a responsibility to stand up for our values.
Onnie cited five reasons for our failure to speak up. First, we often stumble over our best intentions. When so many UUs belong to the very establishment that we are criticizing (white, middle-class, educated, elite), it is hard to speak for the poor and the powerless. We UUs are known for our tolerance, and we are so afraid of saying anything that would offend anyone that we don’t say anything at all.
Second, there is a common agreement among UUs that speaking publicly about religion is not something we do. We are afraid to proselytize, so we keep silent while other religious leaders call good “evil” and evil “good” in the name of political expediency.
Third, we cannot agree on what it means to speak religiously. Our work for social justice is often viewed as being motivated by forces other than religion. However, said Onnie, we need to tie our actions in with our religious values, as UUA President Bill Sinkford did in 2006 when he spoke out about LGBTQ rights, saying that the “sin” is homophobia, not homosexuality. Reverend Onnie also cited the Reverend William Barber, a Christian minister, and his Moral Mondays movement started in North Carolina in 2013. Made up of a number of progressive religious groups, the movement organizes rallies each Monday to promote voting and civil rights, women’s rights, and other social and environmental issues. This movement has now spread to other states, and Onnie took part in one of the rallies.
Fourth, UUs cannot agree on the meaning of the separation of church and state or what role government should play in religious expression and practices. Because we are firm believers in such separation, we tend to downplay how our religious values influence our political opinions.
Finally, engaging in public policy discussions under an “empire” is a real challenge. The goal of an empire is to keep its citizens insecure and powerless, totally dependent upon their leader, and this creates a climate where dissent is frowned upon. However, Onnie said she believes that the impulse for democracy still beats throughout the country. To become a part of this drumbeat, we UUs need to clarify our religious identity and realize that social justice work is religious work. We need to carry our message into the public square by marching, writing letters, speaking out, and voting. She ended her talk with the hope that “May we have the bold courage to make it so.” …rr
August 5:
Unitarians and Universalists -
The History of Class
Sermon by Seminarian Christine Dance
Christine Dance, ministerial intern at Tri-County Unitarian Universalists in Summerfield, Florida, and our guest speaker on August 5, related the history of both the Unitarian and Universalist movements in the United States and how class played a role in keeping the two groups from merging until 1961. Dance is a candidate for the UU Ministry and expects to be ordained in the spring.
As UUs, we talk often about racism, sexism, and gender identity, but we talk less often about how classism, perhaps unconsciously, affects how we look at and judge others. In a 2015 report issued by the UUA, class is described as “power relative to income, wealth, and position in society.” It is tied to “individual, family, and group experiences” and it affects how we “socialize, celebrate, eat, speak, and spend our time.” These aspects of class position follow us when we enter a UU congregation or community, along with assumptions based on our own background and experiences.
Although our UU principles and our history of support for social and economic justice would seem to lead to an equal concern regarding class equality, that has not proven to be the case, and we often fail to recognize class as being a problem in our congregations.
To more fully understand the part class has played in Unitarian Universalism, we need to look back at our history. Before our merger in 1961, the Universalists and the Unitarians represented two very different classes of people. The founder of Universalism in the United States, John Murray, came from England and preached his first sermon in the small country church of a farmer, John Potter. The early Universalists directed their message to rural and small-town people in the Midwest and the West. Because the small churches in these areas could not afford a full-time minister, the early Universalist ministers, who were not formally educated, traveled from town to town and farm to farm, delivering their message wherever they could assemble a crowd.
Unitarianism, on the other hand, developed in Boston among the elite intellectuals of the area, and their ministers were educated at Harvard Divinity School. Unitarians were seen as wealthy, Harvard educated, powerful leaders who had influence in many areas outside religion.
In spite of these vast differences in class, these groups had many similarities. Neither had a creed that adherents had to follow, and both put emphasis on what people did in this life, not on the rewards or punishments of an afterlife. Both groups rejected the notion of hell, and it has often been said that Universalists believe God is too good to condemn people to eternal punishment while Unitarians believe they are too good to be condemned to hell. Because of their similar beliefs, the two groups periodically met for over 100 years to discuss merging into one religion, but class differences kept the two groups separate until 1961, when financial considerations finally led to them agreeing to come together.
Unitarians believed that Universalists were too conservative and too emotional while Universalists believed that Unitarians were too elitist. These class differences can be seen clearly in two men born nine years apart, Unitarian William Ellery Channing and Universalist Hosea Ballou, both well-known ministers to Boston congregations. who clearly knew about one another’s work but never met because they mingled in very different social circles.
When the two groups merged in 1961, the Universalists feared that they would be subsumed by the elite, intellectual Unitarians, and that is what has happened across the country. We UUs today need to be aware of class distinctions and look at our motivation for judging others who shop at Wal-Mart or eat at McDonalds. Instead of living in our own little bubble, we need to examine ourselves to see how we can be more welcoming to all. …rr
Unitarians and Universalists -
The History of Class
Sermon by Seminarian Christine Dance
Christine Dance, ministerial intern at Tri-County Unitarian Universalists in Summerfield, Florida, and our guest speaker on August 5, related the history of both the Unitarian and Universalist movements in the United States and how class played a role in keeping the two groups from merging until 1961. Dance is a candidate for the UU Ministry and expects to be ordained in the spring.
As UUs, we talk often about racism, sexism, and gender identity, but we talk less often about how classism, perhaps unconsciously, affects how we look at and judge others. In a 2015 report issued by the UUA, class is described as “power relative to income, wealth, and position in society.” It is tied to “individual, family, and group experiences” and it affects how we “socialize, celebrate, eat, speak, and spend our time.” These aspects of class position follow us when we enter a UU congregation or community, along with assumptions based on our own background and experiences.
Although our UU principles and our history of support for social and economic justice would seem to lead to an equal concern regarding class equality, that has not proven to be the case, and we often fail to recognize class as being a problem in our congregations.
To more fully understand the part class has played in Unitarian Universalism, we need to look back at our history. Before our merger in 1961, the Universalists and the Unitarians represented two very different classes of people. The founder of Universalism in the United States, John Murray, came from England and preached his first sermon in the small country church of a farmer, John Potter. The early Universalists directed their message to rural and small-town people in the Midwest and the West. Because the small churches in these areas could not afford a full-time minister, the early Universalist ministers, who were not formally educated, traveled from town to town and farm to farm, delivering their message wherever they could assemble a crowd.
Unitarianism, on the other hand, developed in Boston among the elite intellectuals of the area, and their ministers were educated at Harvard Divinity School. Unitarians were seen as wealthy, Harvard educated, powerful leaders who had influence in many areas outside religion.
In spite of these vast differences in class, these groups had many similarities. Neither had a creed that adherents had to follow, and both put emphasis on what people did in this life, not on the rewards or punishments of an afterlife. Both groups rejected the notion of hell, and it has often been said that Universalists believe God is too good to condemn people to eternal punishment while Unitarians believe they are too good to be condemned to hell. Because of their similar beliefs, the two groups periodically met for over 100 years to discuss merging into one religion, but class differences kept the two groups separate until 1961, when financial considerations finally led to them agreeing to come together.
Unitarians believed that Universalists were too conservative and too emotional while Universalists believed that Unitarians were too elitist. These class differences can be seen clearly in two men born nine years apart, Unitarian William Ellery Channing and Universalist Hosea Ballou, both well-known ministers to Boston congregations. who clearly knew about one another’s work but never met because they mingled in very different social circles.
When the two groups merged in 1961, the Universalists feared that they would be subsumed by the elite, intellectual Unitarians, and that is what has happened across the country. We UUs today need to be aware of class distinctions and look at our motivation for judging others who shop at Wal-Mart or eat at McDonalds. Instead of living in our own little bubble, we need to examine ourselves to see how we can be more welcoming to all. …rr
July 29:
Separation of Church and State: Contemporary Considerations
Sermon by Dr. Terry Fine
On June 4, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a test of the application of the First Amendment focusing on whether service providers could be forced to take actions against their religious commitments when engaged in commercial activity. This presentation will focus on the emergence of the concept of the "separation of church and state" and how that concept was applied in the context of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, and other cases and issues.
Terri Susan Fine, Ph.D., is Professor of Political Science at the University of Central Florida
On the last Sunday of July, guest speaker Dr. Terri Fine, professor of Political Science at UCF, discussed two recent Supreme Court decisions having to do with the freedom of religion guaranteed in the 1st Amendment of our Constitution.
The first case, Masterpiece Cake Shop vs. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (decided June 2018), tested whether the freedom of religion guaranteed in the 1st Amendment could be applied to force service providers to take actions that went against their religious beliefs when engaged in commercial activity. The Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, decided for the Cake Shop. Fine reminded us of the two parts of that amendment regarding religion, that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion;” followed by “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Over the past 200-plus years, applying this freedom has always been about denying someone the right to do something because it interferes with the religious rights of others, but only recently have cases come up regarding compelling a person to do something that goes against his or her religious beliefs—from don’t do that to must do that. The decision of the Supreme Court was that the owner could not be forced to create a wedding cake for two men when gay marriage went against his deeply held religious beliefs. (This case, Fine reminded us, began in 2012, before gay marriage had become national law.)
Fine then explained some of the rules governing state law vs. national law and cited the 14th Amendment, which bars discrimination against any American citizen, thus making equal treatment under the law a national, not a state protection, as was seen with the civil rights case of Brown vs. the Board of Education in 1954. Because of the 14th Amendment, the Masterpiece Cake Shop Supreme Court decision affects not only Colorado but the other 49 states as well. She cited a previous Supreme Court decision that ruled 9-0 that a barbeque restaurant in South Carolina that allowed blacks to purchase food at a take-out window could not deny indoor sit-down service to black people if it provided that service to white people, and a motel in Georgia could not refuse to allow black guests to stay at the motel.
Another recent Supreme Court case, also decided in June 2018, again ruled in favor of free exercise of religion, although by a narrower majority of 5-4. This case concerned anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers in California, operated by pro-life religious groups. These centers did not provide any medical services or charge clients for any services, and the Supreme Court’s ruling overturned a state court’s decision that these centers must provide patients with information about contraception and abortion options as well as information regarding keeping their babies. Like the Masterpiece Cake Shop case, compelling these centers to provide information that goes against their religious convictions was ruled to be unconstitutional.
Weighing the freedom of religion guaranteed by our 1st Amendment against the guarantees of equal treatment under the law provided in the 14th Amendment is a tricky balancing act that will continue to lead to more Supreme Court cases. …rr
Separation of Church and State: Contemporary Considerations
Sermon by Dr. Terry Fine
On June 4, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a test of the application of the First Amendment focusing on whether service providers could be forced to take actions against their religious commitments when engaged in commercial activity. This presentation will focus on the emergence of the concept of the "separation of church and state" and how that concept was applied in the context of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, and other cases and issues.
Terri Susan Fine, Ph.D., is Professor of Political Science at the University of Central Florida
On the last Sunday of July, guest speaker Dr. Terri Fine, professor of Political Science at UCF, discussed two recent Supreme Court decisions having to do with the freedom of religion guaranteed in the 1st Amendment of our Constitution.
The first case, Masterpiece Cake Shop vs. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (decided June 2018), tested whether the freedom of religion guaranteed in the 1st Amendment could be applied to force service providers to take actions that went against their religious beliefs when engaged in commercial activity. The Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, decided for the Cake Shop. Fine reminded us of the two parts of that amendment regarding religion, that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion;” followed by “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Over the past 200-plus years, applying this freedom has always been about denying someone the right to do something because it interferes with the religious rights of others, but only recently have cases come up regarding compelling a person to do something that goes against his or her religious beliefs—from don’t do that to must do that. The decision of the Supreme Court was that the owner could not be forced to create a wedding cake for two men when gay marriage went against his deeply held religious beliefs. (This case, Fine reminded us, began in 2012, before gay marriage had become national law.)
Fine then explained some of the rules governing state law vs. national law and cited the 14th Amendment, which bars discrimination against any American citizen, thus making equal treatment under the law a national, not a state protection, as was seen with the civil rights case of Brown vs. the Board of Education in 1954. Because of the 14th Amendment, the Masterpiece Cake Shop Supreme Court decision affects not only Colorado but the other 49 states as well. She cited a previous Supreme Court decision that ruled 9-0 that a barbeque restaurant in South Carolina that allowed blacks to purchase food at a take-out window could not deny indoor sit-down service to black people if it provided that service to white people, and a motel in Georgia could not refuse to allow black guests to stay at the motel.
Another recent Supreme Court case, also decided in June 2018, again ruled in favor of free exercise of religion, although by a narrower majority of 5-4. This case concerned anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers in California, operated by pro-life religious groups. These centers did not provide any medical services or charge clients for any services, and the Supreme Court’s ruling overturned a state court’s decision that these centers must provide patients with information about contraception and abortion options as well as information regarding keeping their babies. Like the Masterpiece Cake Shop case, compelling these centers to provide information that goes against their religious convictions was ruled to be unconstitutional.
Weighing the freedom of religion guaranteed by our 1st Amendment against the guarantees of equal treatment under the law provided in the 14th Amendment is a tricky balancing act that will continue to lead to more Supreme Court cases. …rr
Dr. Ben Brotomarkle
July 22:
Archaeology and Pineda
Sermon by Dr. Ben Brotomarkle
Dr. Brotomarkle is Executive Director of the Florida Historical Society of Cocoa.
Summary by Helen Bennett:
Dr. Brotemarkle gave a fascinating commentary, illustrated with slides, of The Windover Dig and Discoveries, which took place in the 1980s in Titusville. First, he explained how “Pineda” got its name, when in 1894 the Dearborn family named it after a town in Spain. It also means “pine forest.” The Duda family, Andrew and his three sons, formed the Duda Company of cattle and agriculture around that time.
The Windover Dig is now surrounded by a housing development in Titusville, built by Jim Swan in the 1980s. Before that, archaeologists flocked to Windover Pond when some human skulls were discovered there, preserved by the water of the pond. They determined that it was a pond cemetery when many complete skeletons were discovered, kept intact by the peat bog. Amazingly, these bones were 7,000 to 8,000 years old! Other artifacts were found with the bones, attesting to an early civilization far older than others found in the Western Hemisphere. One skeleton had spina bifida, a curved spine, and she and other older, disabled people were cared for by the tribe. These people lived to an advanced age (60s) if they survived childhood. They were buried in ancient cloth, which still survives in disintegrated form. Tested by DNA, some of the skulls still had gray matter. Obviously, the manner of burial suggests religious ritual. Branches were tied together over the pond as a form of grave marking.
Vera Zimmerman, of the Indian River Anthropological Society, wrote small numbers on the bones. Some of them were children, as toys and tools were buried with them. One is a spear-thrower tool which could be used like a tennis racket. Rochelle Marrinan, the FSU Anthropology Chair, noted that bottle gourds were used as water carriers. Tours of the site have been conducted for sightseers.
In Cocoa, the Brevard Museum of History and Natural Sciences houses artifacts from the Windover Dig, as well as reproductions of space age artifacts, such as the Hubbell Telescope. An artist, Brian Owens, has faithfully reproduced what these ancient peoples looked like, and you can see them in the museum. Dr. Brotemarke also told us of many of the activities of the Florida Historical Society, including radio and TV programs, a magazine, book publishing (including our own Ruth Rodgers’ novel, Reparation, about race relations in Florida), the Rossiter House, Zora Neale Hurston (who lived in Brevard), and the Florida Frontier Festival, which will be held on October 20 this year. We are urged to visit headquarters in Cocoa as well as visit the museum in Cocoa. hb
Archaeology and Pineda
Sermon by Dr. Ben Brotomarkle
Dr. Brotomarkle is Executive Director of the Florida Historical Society of Cocoa.
Summary by Helen Bennett:
Dr. Brotemarkle gave a fascinating commentary, illustrated with slides, of The Windover Dig and Discoveries, which took place in the 1980s in Titusville. First, he explained how “Pineda” got its name, when in 1894 the Dearborn family named it after a town in Spain. It also means “pine forest.” The Duda family, Andrew and his three sons, formed the Duda Company of cattle and agriculture around that time.
The Windover Dig is now surrounded by a housing development in Titusville, built by Jim Swan in the 1980s. Before that, archaeologists flocked to Windover Pond when some human skulls were discovered there, preserved by the water of the pond. They determined that it was a pond cemetery when many complete skeletons were discovered, kept intact by the peat bog. Amazingly, these bones were 7,000 to 8,000 years old! Other artifacts were found with the bones, attesting to an early civilization far older than others found in the Western Hemisphere. One skeleton had spina bifida, a curved spine, and she and other older, disabled people were cared for by the tribe. These people lived to an advanced age (60s) if they survived childhood. They were buried in ancient cloth, which still survives in disintegrated form. Tested by DNA, some of the skulls still had gray matter. Obviously, the manner of burial suggests religious ritual. Branches were tied together over the pond as a form of grave marking.
Vera Zimmerman, of the Indian River Anthropological Society, wrote small numbers on the bones. Some of them were children, as toys and tools were buried with them. One is a spear-thrower tool which could be used like a tennis racket. Rochelle Marrinan, the FSU Anthropology Chair, noted that bottle gourds were used as water carriers. Tours of the site have been conducted for sightseers.
In Cocoa, the Brevard Museum of History and Natural Sciences houses artifacts from the Windover Dig, as well as reproductions of space age artifacts, such as the Hubbell Telescope. An artist, Brian Owens, has faithfully reproduced what these ancient peoples looked like, and you can see them in the museum. Dr. Brotemarke also told us of many of the activities of the Florida Historical Society, including radio and TV programs, a magazine, book publishing (including our own Ruth Rodgers’ novel, Reparation, about race relations in Florida), the Rossiter House, Zora Neale Hurston (who lived in Brevard), and the Florida Frontier Festival, which will be held on October 20 this year. We are urged to visit headquarters in Cocoa as well as visit the museum in Cocoa. hb
Rabbi Craig Mayers
July 15:
Applying Ancient Rules
to This Modern World
Sermon by Rabbi Craig Mayers of Temple Beth Sholom of Melbourne
The sermon will include two main “high-tech” advances, lab-grown meat and self-driving cars. I will be talking about how religion and ethics inform our use of - or opposition to - these technologies, and their potential impacts to society.
Summary by Ruth Rodgers:
On July 15, 2018, Rabbi Craig Mayers, of Temple Beth Shalom in Melbourne, spoke to us about some results of modern technology that could never have been imagined by the writers of the Old Testament and explained how a Jewish law group of today is grappling with the religious and ethical issues raised by two of these new technologies: meat grown in a laboratory and self-driving cars.
Scientists have now been able to produce beef in a laboratory by extracting a few stem cells from a cow and using those stem cells to grow meat. The first laboratory-produced hamburger patty cost $325,000, but the price is now down to $11.36, and by 2020 is expected to be on parity with the cost of a regular hamburger patty. For Jews, the question that arises is, “Is it kosher?” According to this Jewish law group, since no animal was harmed in the making of the hamburger, it is not considered meat, and thus it would be “clean,” but, for appearance’ sake, it should go through the same ritual process as other kosher meat.
This lab-grown meat has many advantages over raising cattle for beef production. It helps the environment by greatly reducing the number of cows needed across the world, reduces animal cruelty, for no cows are harmed in the extraction process, provides population support by being available around the world (no cows or pastures needed, only a production facility), provides health benefits (no salmonella or mad cow disease) and would be available to those vegetarians whose opposition to eating meat is the harming of animals.
Richard Branson has predicted that 30 years from now, this laboratory meat will be so widely available that no animals will need to be killed, but Mayers predicts it may be even sooner than that.
The second technological advance that raises religious and ethical questions is self-driving cars. How does one program a robot to make an ethical life or death decision? Mayers gave an example of a train coming down a track that five people are on. The train cannot stop in time to avoid hitting and killing these people, but it can be diverted to another track where one person is standing. Should the train be diverted, and the life of one person be sacrificed to save five others? When given this dilemma, most people agree that diverting the train to the second track is the best option. However, when given the scenario of a heavy man standing on a bridge above the train track and told that throwing the man off the bridge in front of the train will cause the train to stop and thus save the five people further down the track, most people do not approve of this option even though the outcome is the same—the life of one person sacrificed to save five.
Sometimes drivers have to make these kinds of decisions in a split second, and to help robots make ethical decisions, there is a website called Moral Machine (www.moralmachinemit.edu) where people can examine different scenarios and weigh in on the decisions they would make in each case.
Interestingly, 38% of people approved of a person younger than driving age being allowed to ride alone in a driverless car, and 58% approved of a legally blind person being allowed to do so. When asked who should pay a speeding ticket issued to such a car, 38% said the car manufacturer and 24% put the responsibility on the driver (although the car is the driver, so how does a car pay a ticket?)
According to Jewish law, if you are told you must kill a person or be killed yourself, you refuse to kill another person. You cannot trade one person’s life for another’s, and this would apply to driving situations as well. Would we then need special kosher cars for Jews? Such technological advances raise many complex ethical questions. Much food for thought. …rr
Applying Ancient Rules
to This Modern World
Sermon by Rabbi Craig Mayers of Temple Beth Sholom of Melbourne
The sermon will include two main “high-tech” advances, lab-grown meat and self-driving cars. I will be talking about how religion and ethics inform our use of - or opposition to - these technologies, and their potential impacts to society.
Summary by Ruth Rodgers:
On July 15, 2018, Rabbi Craig Mayers, of Temple Beth Shalom in Melbourne, spoke to us about some results of modern technology that could never have been imagined by the writers of the Old Testament and explained how a Jewish law group of today is grappling with the religious and ethical issues raised by two of these new technologies: meat grown in a laboratory and self-driving cars.
Scientists have now been able to produce beef in a laboratory by extracting a few stem cells from a cow and using those stem cells to grow meat. The first laboratory-produced hamburger patty cost $325,000, but the price is now down to $11.36, and by 2020 is expected to be on parity with the cost of a regular hamburger patty. For Jews, the question that arises is, “Is it kosher?” According to this Jewish law group, since no animal was harmed in the making of the hamburger, it is not considered meat, and thus it would be “clean,” but, for appearance’ sake, it should go through the same ritual process as other kosher meat.
This lab-grown meat has many advantages over raising cattle for beef production. It helps the environment by greatly reducing the number of cows needed across the world, reduces animal cruelty, for no cows are harmed in the extraction process, provides population support by being available around the world (no cows or pastures needed, only a production facility), provides health benefits (no salmonella or mad cow disease) and would be available to those vegetarians whose opposition to eating meat is the harming of animals.
Richard Branson has predicted that 30 years from now, this laboratory meat will be so widely available that no animals will need to be killed, but Mayers predicts it may be even sooner than that.
The second technological advance that raises religious and ethical questions is self-driving cars. How does one program a robot to make an ethical life or death decision? Mayers gave an example of a train coming down a track that five people are on. The train cannot stop in time to avoid hitting and killing these people, but it can be diverted to another track where one person is standing. Should the train be diverted, and the life of one person be sacrificed to save five others? When given this dilemma, most people agree that diverting the train to the second track is the best option. However, when given the scenario of a heavy man standing on a bridge above the train track and told that throwing the man off the bridge in front of the train will cause the train to stop and thus save the five people further down the track, most people do not approve of this option even though the outcome is the same—the life of one person sacrificed to save five.
Sometimes drivers have to make these kinds of decisions in a split second, and to help robots make ethical decisions, there is a website called Moral Machine (www.moralmachinemit.edu) where people can examine different scenarios and weigh in on the decisions they would make in each case.
Interestingly, 38% of people approved of a person younger than driving age being allowed to ride alone in a driverless car, and 58% approved of a legally blind person being allowed to do so. When asked who should pay a speeding ticket issued to such a car, 38% said the car manufacturer and 24% put the responsibility on the driver (although the car is the driver, so how does a car pay a ticket?)
According to Jewish law, if you are told you must kill a person or be killed yourself, you refuse to kill another person. You cannot trade one person’s life for another’s, and this would apply to driving situations as well. Would we then need special kosher cars for Jews? Such technological advances raise many complex ethical questions. Much food for thought. …rr
Dr. Houman "Hugh" Sadri
July 8:
Tales of Democracies Around the World:
Success and Failure
Sermon by Dr. Houman "Hugh" Sadri, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Central Florida.
Summary by Ruth Rodgers:
On July 8, guest speaker, Dr. Houman (Hugh) Sadri, UCF professor, US Government Consultant, and president and founder of the Information and Policy Analysis Center (IPAC), a nonprofit, nonpartisan educational foundation, outlined the history of democracies around the world, the different forms they have taken, the defensive measures necessary for them to succeed, and his prognostication of their future.
The word “democracy” comes from two Greek words” “demo,” meaning “people” and “cracy,” meaning “rule.” The idea is not new; it has a long history, going back to the Greek city-states and to various tribes around the world. In many of these early examples, “people” referred only to men, and women were excluded (including the US until the early twentieth century), but decisions were made by the people, not a central ruler. Democracy empowers its citizens and frightens some leaders, so it is both strong and fragile, needing protection from those leaders who seek to centralize power in themselves. In the modern period, democracy has had two primary sources, the French model of Montesquieu and the French Revolution, which focused on equality, and the American Revolution, which focused on liberty vs. tyranny.
There are three main types of democracies. The first is direct, such as was seen in the city-states of Greece and in certain tribal groups, where the people are called together to vote and make decisions that affect the whole. The second is representative, as illustrated by the US government, in which the people elect representatives who, in turn, make decisions for them. Last is democratic centralism, or the socialist model, which is one-party rule. This can be seen in the old USSR and in modern Russia, China, Turkey, and other countries. Rulers are elected by the people, but the government is authoritarian.
For democracy to succeed, it must be defended. The US Constitution, the oldest written, continuous national constitution in existence today, is very short, compared to the governing documents of other nations, but it lays out some important levels of defense, such as federalism, the separation of powers into three governmental branches, and the limits of national rule. In addition to the checks on power set out in our Constitution, other checks include public opinion, interest groups, the media, and, of course, our votes.
During the Post-Cold War period, there was hope for democracy in Russia and Eastern Europe, but the non-European socialist countries, such as Cuba, did not change from their authoritarian rule. There are still many dictatorships around the world, and many Middle Eastern countries are fiercely opposed to Western cultural values.
In looking at the future of democracy, Sadri sees hope so long as there are checks in place to avoid abuse of power. In the United States, we have seen a growing trend to give more power to the President and less to Congress. To combat too much concentration of power, citizens must be active in exercising their opinions, laws must be clarified to spell out rights and responsibilities, and institutions must be in place to check absolute power. Recently, he has seen some real progress toward democracy in the area around the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, especially in Kazakhstan. …rr
Tales of Democracies Around the World:
Success and Failure
Sermon by Dr. Houman "Hugh" Sadri, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Central Florida.
Summary by Ruth Rodgers:
On July 8, guest speaker, Dr. Houman (Hugh) Sadri, UCF professor, US Government Consultant, and president and founder of the Information and Policy Analysis Center (IPAC), a nonprofit, nonpartisan educational foundation, outlined the history of democracies around the world, the different forms they have taken, the defensive measures necessary for them to succeed, and his prognostication of their future.
The word “democracy” comes from two Greek words” “demo,” meaning “people” and “cracy,” meaning “rule.” The idea is not new; it has a long history, going back to the Greek city-states and to various tribes around the world. In many of these early examples, “people” referred only to men, and women were excluded (including the US until the early twentieth century), but decisions were made by the people, not a central ruler. Democracy empowers its citizens and frightens some leaders, so it is both strong and fragile, needing protection from those leaders who seek to centralize power in themselves. In the modern period, democracy has had two primary sources, the French model of Montesquieu and the French Revolution, which focused on equality, and the American Revolution, which focused on liberty vs. tyranny.
There are three main types of democracies. The first is direct, such as was seen in the city-states of Greece and in certain tribal groups, where the people are called together to vote and make decisions that affect the whole. The second is representative, as illustrated by the US government, in which the people elect representatives who, in turn, make decisions for them. Last is democratic centralism, or the socialist model, which is one-party rule. This can be seen in the old USSR and in modern Russia, China, Turkey, and other countries. Rulers are elected by the people, but the government is authoritarian.
For democracy to succeed, it must be defended. The US Constitution, the oldest written, continuous national constitution in existence today, is very short, compared to the governing documents of other nations, but it lays out some important levels of defense, such as federalism, the separation of powers into three governmental branches, and the limits of national rule. In addition to the checks on power set out in our Constitution, other checks include public opinion, interest groups, the media, and, of course, our votes.
During the Post-Cold War period, there was hope for democracy in Russia and Eastern Europe, but the non-European socialist countries, such as Cuba, did not change from their authoritarian rule. There are still many dictatorships around the world, and many Middle Eastern countries are fiercely opposed to Western cultural values.
In looking at the future of democracy, Sadri sees hope so long as there are checks in place to avoid abuse of power. In the United States, we have seen a growing trend to give more power to the President and less to Congress. To combat too much concentration of power, citizens must be active in exercising their opinions, laws must be clarified to spell out rights and responsibilities, and institutions must be in place to check absolute power. Recently, he has seen some real progress toward democracy in the area around the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, especially in Kazakhstan. …rr
July 1:
In preparation for our national, patriotic Independence Day of July 4th, our Guest Speaker was the Rev. Dr. Robert P. Tucker, Ph.D., Minister Emeritus of the UU Congregation of Lakeland, FL. His sermon surveyed recent attempts and failures to install Ten Commandments monuments upon public/government property. Tucker believes these are a violation of the separation of church and state element of the Constitution. He traced the history and problems of this issue and argued that such objects have their appropriate places - in churches and elsewhere - which do not include public/government property, etc. Summary by Ruth Rodgers: On the first Sunday of July, as we celebrated another anniversary of America’s founding, the Reverend Robert Tucker, minister emeritus of the UU Congregation of Lakeland, focused his message on the current culture war going on between mainline Protestants, secularists, and atheists on one side and fundamentalist Christians on the other, concerning the question of whether the United States is a secular democracy (as intended by its founders) or a Christian theocracy (as these fundamentalists would like us to believe). This war is not new; it has raged since the colonial period, and although the United States’ government, by law, is separate from religion, that has not held true in practice. Over our history, the federal government has proclaimed days of prayer and fasting and has appointed chaplains to Congress and the military forces, and states have passed Sunday laws and mandated prayers and Bible reading in public schools. In the early days of our nation, the population consisted almost entirely of Protestants, so the first religious group to feel oppressed was the Catholics. As we became more religiously diverse, laws were changed and more secularism was introduced into public life. These changes, however, have led to a deepening conviction by conservative Protestants that their religious freedom is in danger. To them, being American means being Protestant, and they increasingly feel that their patent on American identity is being infringed upon. Tucker gave two examples of how this feeling of “ownership of American identity” has manifested itself in recent years. The first is “Roy’s Rock,” a four-foot tall, 5,300-pound monument displaying the Ten Commandments that Alabama Southern Baptist Roy Moore had installed, under cover of night, in the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court building on July 31, 2001. His justification was that the Ten Commandments are the basis of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. Feeling that the country had suffered a moral decline over the past 50 years as a result of court rulings removing prayer from public schools, he wanted to return God to public view. Several organizations filed lawsuits against the display, and in November 2002, a federal judge ruled that Moore had gone too far in promoting religion and ordered the rock removed. Moore refused the order and filed an appeal, which he lost. He remained defiant, amassing supporters by the thousands, but in the end, he was suspended from the state Supreme Court, whereupon the other eight justices had the monument moved to a nonpublic area, causing great public outrage. (77% of Alabama residents wanted the Rock to stay.) The second example concerns a monument in Polk County, Florida, also installed in 2001. A citizens’ committee there was authorized by the Polk County Commission to design a $150,000, 7-foot-tall, 6,000-pound monument called “the American Heritage Rock” to be placed in the lobby of the Polk County Administration Building. At its top is a replica of the Liberty Bell, and on the four sides of the monument are engravings of over a dozen documents and quotations from our American heritage, including the Mayflower Compact, the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Preamble to the Constitution of Florida, and the Ten Commandments, which appear on the bottom left quadrant of the monument’s south side, the side least exposed to public view. Controversy arose over whether the real motivation was historical or religious. According to the spirit of the law, this monument, like “Roy’s Rock” in Alabama, violates the separation of church and state, but the US Supreme Court has ruled that placing religious items on government property does not violate the First Amendment as long as they are part of a broader secular, historical, or cultural display. Since the 10 Commandments make up only one-sixteenth of the display, the monument remains, having stayed within the letter of the law. As new monuments continue to go up across the country and new court cases continue to be brought against them., what, asked Tucker, are we to do? He offered two proposals. First, we should make our protests heard in the public meeting rooms of our government and in letters to our local newspapers. Second, we should teach our children that the United States is a democracy, not a theocracy. It was not founded on any religion, not even Christianity. The real rock upon which our laws and political system rest is not the Ten Commandments but the Constitution, and we must not let anyone claim otherwise. ..rr Earlier sermons through 2016: Summaries are in the newsletters.
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Rev. Dr. Robert Tucker
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