I have mentioned Alice Blair Wesley in Sunday talks several times. She has written several books. The following is a short piece that was part of a conversation on a ministers’ chat line. It captures briefly some of the topics she has expanded upon very extensively in other formats. I hope you find it thought provoking:

“The Loving, Covenanted, and Rational Free Church,”
By Alice Blair Wesley

Channing spoke often of the naturalness of religion. He spoke often, too, of the role of the minister, and of the role in authentic religion of intellect, mind, and reason. Oddly, he said almost nothing of the church members who, in our tradition, precede the minister both chronologically and in the exercise of authority. Members first constitute the church, and then call a minister to whom they delegate authority to speak from their pulpit. We have to go to our Puritan founders to find a clear emphasis on love in the lives of church members and the members’ covenant – to walk together in the ways of love – which constitutes a free church and makes sense of its existence in the first place. How does our anthropology explain the existence of the church?

Most of us have known moments of overflowing love, when a new light has seemed to dawn, a new life to stir within us. These are very personal, individual experiences. Yet we human beings are as much social creatures as we are individuals. There is no such thing as vigorous spiritual health, or a capacity to fulfill any great purpose, without long and serious engagement with the minds of others – past and present. We have to have the help of others in order – as individuals – to learn, and think through, and figure out and reason concerning the many – and many changing – factors in the ways of living out love.

Love is the doctrine of this church. … Thus do we covenant with one another and with God. A free and liberal church is a loving and covenanted and thinking community – because authentic religion requires that we use our intellect – our brains – more than any individual can do alone.

Our emphasis on the importance of rationality is grounded in trust that there can be an accurate correspondence between human concepts and reality. Though we never get beyond susceptibility to error, this correspondence can be – and is best – tested within an ongoing and faithful community, which is part of a loving and rational tradition.

No doubt you’ve heard some say we’re too rational. I don’t. I say we have spoken far too little – and need to speak clearly more often – of our longing to be a loving people, whose very lives are shaped by love of all that we find worthy of dedicated service. We need to say that at our best, we are a loving people joined in a covenant to find and live out together, insofar as we can, the ways of love. But God help us if ever we suppose these ways easy to identify, or to live out, in so complex a world as ours. God help us if we are ever embarrassed to confess that finding them and living in accordance with them requires that we think rationally about them together in our churches, hard and well.

Rev. Dale Arnink
Transition Minister, Minister Emeritus

During our Annual Meeting we considered changing the procedure for becoming a member. The Board-approved wording set off alarms: becoming a member shall be by signing the membership book after completion of such steps as stipulated by the membership committee.

“Veni, Vidi, Velcro” in the May Voice tells us what the Membership Committee has put in the Church Manual: We suggest the following steps on the Path to Membership. If any step is difficult or will not meet your needs, we can suggest an alternative. Our interest is in knowing that you are sufficiently acquainted with us before you consider making a commitment. I recommend reading the whole article on pages 9 & 10 of that edition.

None of your Board caught sight of the red flag that many of you did. Namely the adoption of the constitution change could compel undesirable steps to becoming a member if a future Membership Committee changed the Manual. Ever since the founding of the Fellowship in 1953, our Bylaws and Constitution asked for nothing more than signing the Membership Book for becoming a member.

The explanation given for the change was for two reasons: elevating the significance of membership, and protecting our congregation from an unlikely hostile takeover. (Paraphrased) There never has been an attempt to bring conformity or homogeneity by controlling membership. Elsewhere the Constitution makes it clear we are a welcoming, non-creedal congregation. The Board adopted the wording in the proposed constitutional change without input from the Membership Committee, and we are appropriately apologetic.

An open door policy, as expressed in our Vision, our Mission, and our Principles is sacrosanct. We value our friends as much, and sometimes more, than our members – we just don’t let them vote or chair committees. Per human nature, we hold different degrees of affinity for others, and our unending challenge is showing extreme hospitality toward all. In a utopia we would all be great role models for responsibility, sacrifice, and commitment. What we can realistically ask of ourselves is to become a more beloved congregation.

The individual expressions voiced during our meeting I interpreted as a sign that we have a healthy congregation. My regret was that I had not had a Town Hall meeting on the constitutional changes to inform the Board of objections to the proposed changes – then adjustments could have been made. AND the Annual Meeting would have been SHORTER.

Chances of a hostile takeover I think are negligible. The Constitution should make it extremely difficult to accomplish such a crisis. More likely is an internal schism, such as has happened in other places and times. If I harbor a fear, it is that I would contribute to disharmony to a degree that I should accept disenfranchisement and become an ascetic. Now unimaginable. The satirical newspaper The Onion had a column with the headline Report: More Kids Being Home-Churched. My wish is that none of us, and none of our guests will tear at the velcro that binds us in our search for truth and meaning, and that keeps us in fellowship.

Words from the UU Troubador, Ric Masten:

Morning star comes out at night, without the dark there is no light.
If nothing’s wrong, then nothing’s right. Let it be a dance.
Let the sun shine, let it rain; share the laughter, bare the pain,
And round and round we go again. Let it be a dance.

Some of us will lead. Some of us will follow. Some of us will want to stay out of the way and enjoy watching the spectacle. Let us always treasure our diversity and seek out partners with the spirit of a dance.

Carl Newton
2006-2007 Church President