Convicted by Faith

469 years ago this week Spanish physician and theologian Michael Servetus was burned at the stake, on orders of John Calvin.

Servetus had published a couple books that brought him under the scrutiny of both Catholic and Protestant authorities. In On the Errors of the Trinity, he argued that the concept of the trinity–that the single God exists in three aspects, the Father, the Son, the Holy–is not found in the Bible. In The Restoration of Christianity, he sought to bring Christianity back to its pre-Nicean purity.

Servetus was Christan, his theology Biblically sound and Christocentric, but his views, including his antitrinitarianism, nevertheless were considered heretical. Servetus was put on trial by the inquisitor general in Lyon but escaped, so was burned in effigy. He later went to Geneva, despite Calvin’s public declaration that if he did so he would not leave alive. His heresy trial in that city lasted from August 14 to October 25. He was executed two days later.

In an interesting sidenote, his execution brought about a debate about the execution of heretics. Calvin argued that "to spare Servetus would have been to endanger the souls of many." French theologian Sebastian Castellio, an early proponent of religious tolerance argued "to kill a man is not to protect a doctrine; it is but to kill a man ... when Servetus fought with reasons and writings, he should have been repulsed by reasons and writings."

It is a stretch to call Servetus a capital U Unitarian–though that has not prevented at least a couple UU congregations from naming themselves after him. He did not found a movement. He did not call himself a Unitarian. He did die for his beliefs. And because one of those beliefs led to others espousing unitarian theologies and eventually became the central tenet of one of the two faith traditions that merged to become Unitarian Universalism, he’s worth a mention when the anniversary of his execution rolls around–especially in a year when we have devoted the month of that anniversary to a exploration of courage.

Having already been convicted of heresy in Lyon, it must have taken courage, not to mention some degree of recklessness, for Servetus to enter Geneva knowing that Calvin was gunning for him, so to speak. Mary Oliver might have been writing about him:

You can

die for it -

an idea,

or the world. People

have done so,

brilliantly,

letting

their small bodies be bound

to the stake,

creating

an unforgettable

fury of light.

She could have been writing about Michael Servetus…and she could have been writing about Joan of Arc, and she could have been writing about hundreds of other martyrs, too. People of many faiths, many genders, who were convicted of heresy for their faith, and died all manner of horrible deaths because of it. Courage was certainly part of their individual stories–the courage to refuse to renounce their faith or recant their teachings, despite threat of hanging, burning, stoning and other horrific deaths.

There are, and have been throughout recorded history, beliefs, principles worth dying for. Or going to jail for, as did Thoreau, for non-payment of his taxes, a true incident recounted in this morning’s story. To his dismay Thoreau wasn’t in jail long before someone else paid his taxes and he was released. But he was there long enough for Emerson to have visited him and inquired, “Henry, what are you doing in there?” To which Thoreau replied, “What are you doing out there?” Meaning: why haven’t you refused to pay taxes that support slavery and the war on Mexico?

No one has ever asked me why I’m not in jail. No one except me, that is. Throughout my career I’ve listened to colleagues talk about the first time they were arrested at a protest, or the last time they were arrested in an act of civil disobedience. I’ve not yet joined their ranks–timidity and circumstance have combined to keep me arrest-free, and I feel some guilt about that. That there is something lacking in my credentials as a progressive, as a Unitarian Universalist minister, without an arrest record or single hour in jail to my credit.

But, I say only partly to make myself feel better, there are many ways to stand by our faith, to live out our faith, to leave the mark of our embodied values on our small patch of the world.

Declaring our beliefs publicly is one way. Though the Baptist professor in this morning’s other reading discovered declaring his universalist beliefs wasn’t enough for him to be convicted of Universalism, usually a declaration is a start.

My late colleague Robert Walsh, who wrote about the professor, speculated that the man was acquitted because he didn’t participate in a Universalist church—leading Walsh himself to write that if anyone was going to convict him of Universalism, they would have to prove that he participated in a Universalist institution. That’s a second way, perhaps a second ring, of standing by one’s faith: joining a church or other institution, banding together with others who share one’s beliefs and values, to refine and deepen one’s understanding of those beliefs, to spread word of those beliefs, and to practice the values informed by those beliefs.

A third way of standing by one’s faith is to act beyond the walls of the institution–lobbying, protesting, rallying, writing letters–leveraging one’s beliefs for the good of the community. And sometimes getting arrested for those efforts. And sometimes even dying in the name of those beliefs, as Heather Heyer did in Charlottesville, or as Unitarian Universalists Viola Luizzo and James Reeb did in Selma. The third and fourth rings of standing by and on one’s faith. Getting arrested. Dying.

Still today, in the 21st century, in our country and around the world, what starts as the courage to stand by one’s faith sometimes ends in martyrdom. But most of us are never going to be convicted of heresy or even tried in a religious court only to be acquitted like the unnamed Baptist professor. We might lose friends or become estranged from family members over our beliefs. We might lose jobs or reputations–though a reputation lost in some segments of society might just be a reputation made or gained in some other segments of society.

The point, nevertheless, is, faith, if it is going to be anything other than platitudes, requires courage. If we are going to declare that all are God’s children, like that Baptist professor, then we need the courage to vote as if that were true. The courage to spend our money as though that were true. The courage to organize as though that were true. The courage to take the fight to Geneva–or Atlanta or city hall or the school board–as though it were true that all are God’s children, regardless of gender or color or immigration status or religion or national origin. Even if Calvin is waiting there, having declared we’re not getting out alive or with our job or reputation in tact.

Courage, as I said last week, doesn’t look the same for every person or even throughout one person’s lifetime. Sometimes to be truly convicted of our faith requires the courage to go it alone and sometimes the courage to form community. Sometimes the courage to be arrested and sometimes the courage to hang back because family commitments or health consideration make arrest unadvisable. Sometimes the courage to put up a yard sign or add our name to a petition. Sometimes the courage to make a larger financial contribution to the church or a campaign or a cause that might seem prudent.

A venerable Unitarian Universalist minister once wrote a newsletter column expounding on the idea that the only reason for belonging to a Unitarian Universalist congregation is to support that Unitarian Universalist congregation financially. That column regularly made the rounds of other UU newsletters, particularly at canvass time. I haven’t seen it in a while. It could be I’m reading the wrong newsletters, but I think it has faded from the scene for another reason. Every Unitarian Universalist minister I know believes it is important for congregation members to support the church with their dollars and their time. But I know of none who would say the only reason to belong is to support the church financially. The Unitarian Universalist ministers I know and the ones I just follow on social media, would say, pretty much to a one, that the primary reason for belonging to a UU congregation is to become convicted by faith beyond a shadow of doubt, so thoroughly, so overwhelmingly convicted by our Unitarian Universalist faith that we are overcome with the courage necessary to save the world. May it be so. Amen.