Religion is far more than what happens on Sunday morning. What’s most important is how what happens on Sunday morning shapes and influences our actions all week long. I’ve long seen religion as a matter of behavior. Life-Span Faith Development implies to me that we never stop trying to apply our faith in our everyday interactions with others. Paul Ropp
I first came to First Unitarian to sing in the choir, and
for two years, I saw that as my only responsibility (even though we loved the
Sunday services and were impressed with the choir community). One day Barbara Merritt mentioned that on
average people attend the church for two years before joining. Marj and I both had the same thought at the
same time: “We come every Sunday and
appreciate the experience, we might as well sign up as members.” After that, we began to stay for coffee hour
and we quickly got to know people beyond our friends in the choir.
Among those people was Bill Densmore, a deceptively quiet
and soft-spoken retired businessman who coordinated frequent presentations and
discussions on social and political issues in the chapel after the Sunday
worship service, under the title Religion in Our Times (today known as Faith in
Action). I’ve always been interested in
politics and in the practical implications of our religious faith for the
difficult social and political problems that are ever present in our flawed
world. So I was naturally drawn to Bill
Densmore and his programs, and soon got involved in helping him organize those
discussions.
Confucius argued that there is no meaningful distinction
between the secular and the sacred. He taught
that we should approach all of life with the same sense of reverence that people
expect in religious rituals and ceremonies.
This means that religion is far more than what happens on Sunday
morning. What’s most important is how
what happens on Sunday morning shapes and influences all our actions all week
long. With his many parables, Jesus
taught a similar message. He challenged
the view of religion as purifying and rituals, and promoted instead applying
the ethics of a loving God in a broken world.
My father was a Mennonite farmer, and a closet
Unitarian. When Paul Miller, a family
friend, wanted to join our church but said he didn’t believe in the
resurrection of Jesus, my dad was unequivocal in his views: Paul Miller, who sang in the choir and came
to church every Sunday, should be allowed to join the church if he wanted to
(and join he did). The Mennonites I grew
up with saw Christianity as a matter of discipleship, following the path of
Jesus, living a simple life, welcoming the stranger, and promoting nonviolence
as a way of life.
So I’ve long seen religion as a matter of behavior. Life-Span Faith Development implies to me that
we never stop trying to deepen and clarify our understanding of our own
religious faith. And to deepen our faith
we need keep an open mind, to acknowledge doubts that arise, to explore
alternative visions, and to be willing to question views we may have previously
accepted uncritically. And it’s equally
important that we never stop trying to apply our faith to all our endeavors in
the secular world and in our everyday interactions with others. I see our Life-Span Faith Development programs,
such as Faith in Action as providing ways to help us clarify and deepen our
values, to help inform us about the spiritual and material needs in our world,
and to help inspire us to live up to our values in working to meet those human
needs.
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