For All the Saints

Rev. Mark Richards pays a return visit to examine the idea,  “What our UU movement needs are new voices, new saints. . . to lift up the community of individuals gathered in love.”

In the Roman Catholic Church, November 1 is the day to celebrate all of those who have “attained heaven,” those deemed to be saints. In the UU world, we shy away from those
ecclesiastical words, but we still lift up those who stand out as superior expressions of what it means to be a Unitarian Universalist. Examining the ideas of these people exposes an
evolution in our common understanding of God. In the early days of our movement, men like Hosea Ballou and William Ellery Channing transformed the tripartite God who punished
sinners into a unified God who love all creation. Later, Free-Religionists such Mary Safford and the Iowa Sisterhood forged inspiration from internal conviction rather that external
revelation. Then, Humanists such as John Dietrich lifted up the intrinsic value of an individual human life. Today, the individual has been elevated to a height too lofty to sustain. With
demands that an individual’s comfort supersedes a community’s well-being, we are witnessing the absurd extremity of individualism. What our UU movement needs are new voices, new saints, to “attain heaven” here and now. To lift up the community of individuals gathered in love. To bring into being the “Beloved Community” that Dr. King invited us into so many years ago.

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