Sort of the Definition of Universalism
When I was hospital chaplain many years ago, I received a phone call one day from someone who begged me, sobbing, to go visit her grandmother- in-law. The caller was terrified that that woman would die without having accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior, and thus not go to heaven. She wanted me to convince the dying woman that her eternal life depended on her quickly becoming Christian (the caller’s definition of Christian) before the imminent end of her life.
I assured the caller I would visit her grandmother-in-law, but told her I would not comply with the rest of her request, that that was not my role as chaplain. I heard the terror in the voice at the other end of the phone line, and thought how grateful I was to be a Unitarian Universalist. Because if the flipside of knowing that your Christianity assures your place in heaven, is that kind of terror about your loved ones who don’t meet your definition of Christianity, that’s a trade-off I don’t want.
Our Soul Matters theme for the month of January is The Gift of Liberating Love–as far as I’m concerned sort of the definition of Universalism. For most of my life, I’ve thought that the gift of the Universalist strand of Unitarian Universalism was liberating me and others from the fear of damnation, through its teaching that a loving God wouldn’t, in fact couldn’t, save some people and damn others, anymore than a loving parent could do love some of their children and forsake some of their children. "No matter what. No matter how mad. No matter how awful." That Universalism means knowing that we don’t have to do anything to be good enough to avoid Eternal damnation. Knowing that I, personally, am held by a capital L Love that, while I may not fully comprehend It, will nevertheless never let me go. Along with that reassuring implication for me and those I love, I also understood that Universalism meant I need never engage in the mental, rhetorical, logical, and ethical calculus about how people who have never heard of Jesus can be penalized for all eternity for not accepting Him as Lord and Savior. All of these nuances are gifts of a liberating Love–and they are an incomplete understanding of the Love our Universalist forebears passed on to us, that we have encapsulated in recent decades as “the inherent worth and dignity of every person”.
Some of my younger colleagues have recently both deepened and expanded my understanding of that Love and of the implication of what has been the first of our principles since the early 1980. These colleagues talk about Universal Love being above their paygrade. They say they don’t need to know how or why someone generally accepted to be awful or even evil is worthy of Love that holds us all; they only have to know that it is so and then they can let go; turning eternal salvation over to God where it rightly belongs. Put another way, they don’t need to be able to recognize the inherent worth of the people they, we, know to be awful or evil; they only need to accept that it is so. I’m reveling in this new understanding of what Universalism means. It means freedom from judgment (and the fear that engenders); it also means freedom from judging.
If you spend any time at all on social media, you’ve probably seen memes reminding us that the admonition “love your neighbor” includes our immigrant neighbors, our brown and black neighbors, our non-English speaking neighbors, our LGBTQIA neighbors, our disabled neighbors and so forth. Folks I know like these memes that are somehow simultaneously feel good and slightly scolding. They reinforce our commitment to affirming the inherent worth of every person. But they aren’t comprehensive.
They don’t usually remind us to include our incarcerated neighbors, our registered sex offender neighbors, our ex-offender neighbors–though some progressive congregations in a variety of faiths, including UUism, do love and serve these neighbors. And I’ve never seen a meme that reminds us to love our billionaire neighbors, our CEOs of multinational corporation neighbors, our strongmen neighbors, our dictator neighbors.
Those are the hard ones for political and social and theological progressives. I say this in all earnestness, without an ounce of flippancy. We, or at least I and many of my friends and family members and colleagues, chaff a bit or a lot when we confront the reality that “every person” means every person–even those who make our skin crawl, our blood boil, our belief in humanity falter. We might wonder secretly if they do in fact have inherent worth.
As I was putting fresh linens on my bed Friday afternoon I realized I’ve also never seen a meme that reminds me to love Mike Lindell, the My Pillow Guy, as my neighbor. I know many people who love to hate Mike Lindell. They mock his questionable sales tactics–can products be advertised as half off if they are never sold at full price? They disparage his cozy relationships with the former president and Steve Bannon and Jim Bakker. Rail against his election fraud conspiracy theories. They pan the quality of his pillows. And I do all of that, too–except for the pillows. I love my MyPillows and hate that I’ll never buy another one–because of his sales tactics, and his politics and his conspiracy theories and his cozy relationships with the former president and Steve Bannon and Jim Bakker. But…
When I was on the board of a small shelter for unhoused women and children I heard that MyPillow had donated pillows to a similar shelter. I found a general email address and sent a message describing our shelter and asked who to contact regarding donations and what information I should send. Several weeks passed without a reply. The day of our ribbon cutting came, and the shelter director gave tours of the house to the mayor and the press and the board. There, on every bed, in every room, were two brand new MyPillows that had been delivered without notice–the result of my one email. A couple years later, after all the pillows had been sent home with families as they moved into their own apartments, MyPillow sent us more pillows.
If I were God’s Southeastern Rep (to paraphrase Anne Lamott), I’d struggle with the eternal fate of Mike Lindell. Does his generosity to a tiny shelter in southern Minnesota and perhaps to other good causes outweigh his questionable business practices, his consorting with insurrectionists and disgraced televangelists, his relentless hawking and funding of conspiracy theories? But I’m not God’s Southeastern Rep, and even if I were, Mike Lindell’s eternal fate would be above my paygrade. Only God has to worry about whether or not to damn Mr. Lindell–and God doesn’t worry about it. My Universalism teaches me that God already decided for all time and all people–no damnation. Universal love. "No matter what. No matter how mad. No matter how awful."
If we want to take God out of the equation, we have already decided, as Unitarian Universalists, that we will engage in life as though every person has inherent worth and dignity. Every person, every category and type of person named on all the Love Your Neighbor memes. And every category and type of person not named. Every person. Taught by our Universalist forebears, we decided a long time ago for all time and all people that it is so. We don’t have to understand the calculus–how much selfishness or greed or cruelty is offset by each kind gesture or generosity act or caring word. There is no such calculus. Love liberates us from that form of judging our companions upon the earth.
We’re still free to judge in our small human ways. To decide not to send our money that will further his agenda to Mike Lindell, even if we sleep better on his pillows than any others. To get out the vote for candidates we believe will serve the people more justly and compassionately than the candidates whose politics we abhor. To speak truth to power and call lies lies. To protest and rally and march. In fact, I believe, we are not just free to do all these things; we’re called to do them.
But we’re not free to condemn anyone to the hell we say we don’t believe in–even if they did mean to do whatever it is they’ve done and it wasn’t an accident. Because as soon as ‘every person’ becomes ‘every person less one’ all of us, but especially folks at the margins of society, are in danger of becoming the one not included. And Universal capital L Love becomes small l love and loses its liberating power. And life and eternity without the liberating power of Love would be, well, hell on earth and hell ever after. I gladly stick to matters at my paygrade rather than risk that fate for all humankind. You?
Amen.