Universalism Toolkit
Theme
Person
Chalice Lighting
Reading
Story for All Ages
Sample Sermon
Music
Art
September
Origins/New Beginnings
Origen
“Clement’s student and successor was St. Origen (185-254), a great early Christian theologian
and church father. Origen began his work in Alexandria, was ordained as a priest in Greece, and
later founded a school at Caesarea, the provincial capital of Palestine. He wrote the first
systematic commentary and exegesis of the entire Bible, including concordance, and he produced
a Bible in six columns, showing parallel versions of the Greek and Hebrew text. His greatest
contribution was to develop a comprehensive understanding of the Gospel that was based on
belief in God’s plan for the ultimate redemption and restoration of all as the foundation of the
Christian message. Origen died as a martyr, enduring torture at the hands of the Roman
government for his faith in Christ, during a time of terrible persecution of the Christian
community.
Most of Origen’s copious writings have been lost or destroyed by later opponents, but what
remains shows a picture of a truly deep spiritual thinker who bridges the divide between East
and West in a way that few, if any, other major religious leaders of history have done. He
emphasized the teaching that all souls have emanated from God, descended into realms of
separation as they fell into sin, and must ascend back to the Source of All Being through a divine
plan of multiple ages and trials. Origen’s belief in preexistence and reincarnation of the soul led
to a great deal of controversy, as these ideas were supported by some early Christians but
adamantly opposed by others. These controversial views have prevented him from being
canonized in most branches of Christianity, but he is recognized as a saint in the Coptic Church.
Regardless of whether one agrees with all of his specific teachings, Origen’s theology is rich and
illuminating, and has a strongly Universalist flavor. Origen understood the Biblical story of the
Fall of Man as an illustration of the way human spirits have left God, seeking earthly things of
ego, and thus have been separated from the true happiness that can only be found in God’s
Presence. He saw Christ as the firstborn Son of God, the only being in the universe who never fell
from grace, and whose eternal perfection is an example to all other humans in their progression
back toward reunion with God. Origen wrote in his De Principiis and Against Celsus concerning
the way God will restore all beings to Himself:
“God’s consuming fire works with the good as with the evil, annihilating that which harms His
children. This fire is one that each one kindles; the fuel and food is each one’s sins. … When the
soul has gathered together a multitude of evil works, and an abundance of sins against itself, at
a suitable time all that assembly of evils boils up to punishment, and is set on fire to
chastisement… [I]t is to be understood that God our Physician, desiring to remove the defects of
our souls, should apply the punishment of fire. … Our God is a ‘consuming fire’ in the sense in
which we have taken the word; and thus He enters in as a ‘refiner’s fire’ to refine the rational
nature, which has been filled with the lead of wickedness, and to free it from the other impure
materials which adulterate the natural gold or silver, so to speak, of the soul. [O]ur belief is that
the Word [Christ] shall prevail over the entire rational creation, and change every soul into his
own perfection. … For stronger than all the evils in the soul is the Word, and the healing power
that dwells in him; and this healing he applies, according to the will of God, to every man.”
From https://christianuniversalist.org/resources/articles/history-of-universalism/
Chalice Lighting: “The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.” ~ Origen
Reading:
“For as medical men sometimes, although they could quickly cover over the scars of wounds, keep back
and delay the cure for the present, in the expectation of a better and more perfect recovery, knowing
that it is more salutary to retard the treatment in the cases of swellings caused by wounds, and to
allow the malignant humours to flow off for a while, rather than to hasten a superficial cure, by
shutting up in the veins the poison of a morbid humour, which, excluded from its customary outlets,
will undoubtedly creep into the inner parts of the limbs, and penetrate to the very vitals of the
viscera, producing no longer mere disease in the body, but causing destruction to life; so, in like
manner, God also, who knows the secret things of the heart, and foreknows the future, in much
forbearance allows certain events to happen, which, coming from without upon men, cause to come
forth into the light the passions and vices which are concealed within, that by their means those may
be cleansed and cured who, through great negligence and carelessness, have admitted within
themselves the roots and seeds of sins, so that, when driven outwards and brought to the surface, they
may in a certain degree be cast forth and dispersed. [2342] And thus, although a man may appear to
be afflicted with evils of a serious kind, suffering convulsions in all his limbs, he may nevertheless, at
some future time, obtain relief and a cessation from his trouble; and, after enduring his afflictions to
satiety, may, after many sufferings, be restored again to his (proper) condition. For God deals with
souls not merely with a view to the short space of our present life, included within sixty years [2343]
or more, but with reference to a perpetual and never-ending period, exercising His providential care
over souls that are immortal, even as He Himself is eternal and immortal. ”
― Origen, The Works of Origen: De Principiis/Letters/Against Celsus
Story for All Ages: https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/adults/river/workshop10/178655.shtml
Sample Sermon: Craig Nowak http://www.buuc.org/universalisms-origen.html
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUFz-c7ETYg
Music: Ubi Caritas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2o27qpvfUc
Art:
From https://christianuniversalist.org/resources/articles/history-of-universalism/
October
Foundations *Actual Date of Sermon September 30, 1770
John & Judith Sargent Murray
http://uudb.org/articles/johnmurray.html
http://uudb.org/articles/judithsargentmurray.html
Chalice: “You may possess only a small light, but uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more
light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men and women.” ~ John Murray
Reading: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=pTRfAAAAcAAJ&rdid=book-
pTRfAAAAcAAJ&rdot=1 p. 248
Or
Judith Sargent Murray Conclusion of Records of the Life of the Rev. John Murray 1816
McKanan, Dan. A Documentary History of Unitarian Universalism, Vol. 1: From the Beginning to 1899
(Pages 160-164). Skinner House Books. Kindle Edition.
Story: https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/children/home/session12/60161.shtml
Sermon: Meg Barnhouse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYD4JPi0GHY
Music: “Preach the Gospel of Love” https://www.uua.org/worship/words/music/preach-gospel-love
Art: Video Tour of Murray Grove https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EON4D2iNTwY&feature=youtu.be
Judith Sargent Murray by John Singleton Copley
More Resources:
Thomas Potter https://www.murraygrove.org/thomas-potter-story
https://www.murraygrove.org/thomas-potter-and-john-murray-story
John Murray https://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/john-murray/
Judith Sargent Murray http://jsmsociety.com/JSM_Archive.html
November
Gratitude
Clara Barton
http://uudb.org/articles/clarabarton.html
Chalice Lighting: Long ago I added to the true old adage of "What is everybody's business is nobody's
business," another clause which, I think, more than any other principle has served to influence my
actions in life. That is, What is nobody's business is my business. ~ Clara Barton
Reading: https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/adults/resistance/workshop4/182277.shtml
Story for All Ages: https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/children/lovesurrounds/session16/angel
Sample Sermon: Luke Stevens-Royer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxwW304zJFc
Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZmxZThb084
Art:
December
Gifts of the Spirit
Thomas Starr King (his father was also Thomas King, his mother's maiden name was Starr, he was known
as Mr. King or called "Starr" by his family and friends)
http://uudb.org/articles/thomasstarrking.html
Chalice Lighting: “The spirit of a person's life is ever shedding some power, just as a flower is steadily
bestowing fragrance upon the air.” ~ Thomas Starr King
Reading: McKanan, Dan. A Documentary History of Unitarian Universalism, Vol. 1: From the Beginning to
1899 (Pages 347-348). Skinner House Books. Kindle Edition.
Thomas Starr King “Substance and Show” 1851
Universalist and Unitarian minister Rev. Thomas Starr King (1824–1864) was born in New York to
European-American parents. Instead of a seminary education, he learned from men such as Hosea
Ballou II, Edwin Hubbell Chapin, James Walker, and Frederic Henry Hedge. An early advocate of merger
between the Unitarians and Universalists, King served Charlestown Universalist Church before being
called to the Unitarian Hollis Street Church. King and his wife, Julia, maintained a vibrant social and
intellectual circle of Boston’s elites, and King became a luminary on the lyceum circuit. His lecture,
“Substance and Show,” which illuminates the metaphysical underpinnings of his theology, was one of his
most popular in New England as well as in California.
Further Reading: Richard Frothingham, A Tribute to Thomas Starr King (Boston: Ticknor and Fields,
1865); Charles W. Wendte, Thomas Starr King: Patriot and Preacher (Boston: Beacon Press, 1921).
—Sheri Prud’homme
I propose to speak on the difference between substance and show, or the distinction we should make
between the facts of the world and life, and the causal forces which lie behind and beneath them....
Most persons, doubtless, if you place before them a paving-stone and a slip of paper with some writing
on it, would not hesitate to say that there is as much more substance in the rock than in the paper as
there is heaviness. Yet they might make a great mistake. Suppose that the slip of paper contains the
sentence, “God is love”; or, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself ”; or, “All men have moral rights by
reason of heavenly parentage,” then the paper represents more force and substance than the stone.
Heaven and earth may pass away, but such words can never die out or become less real.
The word “substance” means that which stands under and supports anything else. Whatever then
creates, upholds, classifies anything which our senses behold, though we cannot handle, see, taste, or
smell it, is more substantial than the object itself. In this way the soul, which vivifies, moves, and
supports the body, is a more potent substance than the hard bones and heavy flesh which it vitalizes....
There is a very general tendency to deny that ideal forces have any practical power. But there have
been several thinkers whose skepticism has an opposite direction. “We cannot,” they say, “attribute
external reality to the sensations we feel.” We need not wonder that this theory has failed to convince
the unmetaphysical commonsense of people that a stone post is merely a stubborn thought, and that
the bite of a dog is nothing but an acquaintance with a pugnacious, four-footed conception....
And yet, by more satisfactory evidence than that which the idealists propose, we are warned against
confounding the conception of substance with matter, and confining it to things we can see and grasp.
Science steps in and shows us that the physical system leans on spirit. We talk of the world of matter,
but there is no such world. Everything about us is a mixture or marriage of matter and spirit. A world of
matter simply would be a huge head of sandy atoms or an infinite continent of stagnant vapor. There
would be no motion, no force, no form, no order, no beauty, in the universe as it now is; organization
meets us at every step and wherever we look; organization implies spirit,—something that rules,
disposes, penetrates, and vivifies matter.
Source: Thomas Starr King, Substance and Show and Other Lectures, ed. Edwin P. Whipple (Boston:
James R. Osgood and Company, 1877), 1–3.
Story for All Ages: https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/children/windows/session3/143446.shtml
Sample Sermon: Arliss Ungar https://www.sksm.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/thossklecture-B.pdf
Music: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOjHhS5MtvA King said it was
the Yosemite of music.
Art: King's statue, by Daniel Chester French, was removed from the National Statuary Hall in the Capitol
Building to make room for a statue of Ronald Reagan.
http://www.yeodoug.com/resources/dc_french/king/dcfrench_king.html
January
Atonement
Hosea Ballou
http://uudb.org/articles/hoseaballou.html
Chalice Lighting: “There is no such thing as “best,” in the world of individuals.” ~ Hosea Ballou "There is
no such thing as "best" in the world of individuals."
Reading: https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/adults/movesus/workshop3/282536.shtml
Story for All Ages: https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/children/journeys/session2/muddy-children
Sample Sermon: Jay Wolin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0J_xxgibbA
Music: https://youtu.be/a8bBIC7QLMY
from
https://revscottwells.com/2016/04/09/the-one-hosea-ballou-hymn-in-current-use/
Art: https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/adults/movesus/workshop3/282541.shtml
February
Universal Love
Mark Morrison-Reed
https://www.uuworld.org/articles/true-my-lineage
Chalice Lighting: “The central task of religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all.
There is a connectedness, a relationship discovered amid the particulars of each of our individual lives.
Once felt, it inspires us to act for justice. The religious community is essential, for alone our vision is too
narrow to see that all must be seen, and our strength too limited to do all that must be done. Together,
our vision widens and our strength is renewed.” ~ Mark Morrison-Reed
Reading:
Suppose that funds had been forthcoming in 1911 when Joseph Fletcher Jordan asked
Universalists to support plans to add a seminary to the African American school he ran in
Suffolk, Virginia. The graduates might have fanned out across the South to preach the gospel of
the larger hope, God’s all-embracing love. They needed $6,000 for this endeavor. Jordan
traveled around the Northeast in 1911–1912 raising money, but in the end raised less than
$1,500. To put this in context, in April 1890, the Universalists began a mission in Japan. The
Japanese mission was given at least $6,000 a year, often more, eventually totaling more than
$275,000. During the same years the Universalists could not raise $6,000 for their “Mission to
the Colored People.” What does it suggest? Black lives don’t matter.
Imagine if Jackson had brought his Baptist congregation into the AUA or if Jordan had been
successful in establishing a seminary. I cannot help but wonder what our worship would have
been like. What gets emphasized when a black Universalist preaches about God’s enduring
love? Likewise, what is highlighted when a black Unitarian preaches about freedom?
…. Universalism was different [from Unitarianism] because it was difficult for African Americans
to embrace. A loving God who saves all is, for most African Americans, a theological non
sequitur. Why? In an article entitled “In the Shadow of Charleston,” Reggie Williams writes
about a young black Christian who said, during a prayer group following the murder of nine
people at Emanuel AME Church in 2015, “that if he were to also acknowledge the historical
impact of race on his potential to live a safe and productive life in America, he would be forced
to wrestle with the veracity of the existence of a just and loving God who has made him black in
America.” This is the question of theodicy: How do we reconcile God’s goodness with the
existence of evil? In the context of Charleston, the context of Jim Crow, the context of slavery,
what is the meaning of black suffering? Why has such calamity been directed at African
Americans? If God is just and loving there must be a reason. If there is no reason, one is led to
the conclusion that God is neither just nor loving.
Hosea Ballou’s Ultra-Universalism, the “death and glory school” in which all are saved and
brought into God’s embrace upon death, is mute on this. In fact, it trivializes black suffering.
What is the meaning of enslavement if the master and slave are both redeemed? The way black
theology answers this question is that God is the God of the oppressed; that God through Jesus,
who suffered, identifies with the oppressed and will comfort and lift them up. This requires that
a distinction be made between the oppressor and the oppressed. What kind of God makes such
a distinction? A righteous, judging God: the God of the Old Testament. Surveys tell us this is the
kind of God in which the vast majority of African Americans believe. Such a belief makes sense
of their lives because it is concurrent with a nightmarish experience. What slave could look
forward to an afterlife shared with the master who owned and raped her, the foreman who
whipped him, or the Klansmen who lynched him? None.
I can only hypothesize that the Restorationists, rather than Ultra-Universalists, might have
offered an answer of sorts. Yes, the oppressors would enter heaven. When? At the end of time,
or after eons of repentance. But the only answer that would have counted would have been the
lived one—the one that would have evolved if more Universalists had stood more consistently
with the enslaved and disinherited and thus spoke of and to their experience. With few
exceptions, they did not.
Today there are elements in Universalism that could make us, as Unitarian Universalists, as
ineffectual now as in the past. The old Universalist adage “the supreme worth of every person,”
or as we now say, “the inherent worth and dignity of every person,” invites some to say, “Yes,
black lives matter, but all lives matter.” It is true, but when offered in response to “Black Lives
Matter” it means something else.
In saying “All Lives Matter” UUs telegraph that we do not really understand. It is a variation on
Universalism’s old theological pitfall. When it does not protest the systemic devaluing of black
lives it obfuscates an important distinction. Saying “All Lives Matter” tells African Americans we
do not know the difference between privilege and oppression. Hear how it echoes our religious
ancestors. They said, “God is love” and “We are all God’s children,” but with regard to African
Americans they did not act in accordance with that belief, nor did they try to articulate how it
might speak to black suffering. Why? Because given their social and geographic location blacks
were invisible.
African Americans, however, were visible in a particular way. White UUs saw blacks when it
served their ego needs. That is to say, black lives didn’t matter—except insofar as white folks
got to feel good about themselves as abolitionists and civil rights activists. Many who went to
Selma—James Reeb, Orloff Miller, Clark Olsen, Jack Taylor, Fred Lipp, and Gene Reeves, for
example—had close relationships with African Americans, but the majority did not.
“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me . . .,” writes Ralph Ellison in
Invisible Man. “When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or
figments of their imagination—indeed, everything and anything except me.” That has been the
black experience within Unitarian Universalism.....
The time in Unitarian Universalism when black lives didn’t matter has passed. Nonetheless,
change is generational, incremental, and bruising. It comes, but not necessarily on our time
schedule. We have fallen short and will again, and when we do we need to pause and pray and
ask, “What does love demand of me?” and then stand up and try again. Impatience is not what
sustains us, but rather dreams, hope, work, and companionship—the chance to pour out one’s
life for the faith, principles, and people whom we value.
~ Mark Morrison-Reed, “The black hole in the white UU psyche,” UU World, 10/2/2017 | FALL 2017
Story for All Ages: Mark tells a story about how Jeffrey Campbell found the Universalist Church (around
1919) and it is basically a theology of snack. He told it when he preached at the First Unitarian Church of
Oakland in 2017.
Sample Sermon: Mark Morrison-Reed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vTqF3xLnrg “Dragged Kicking and Screaming into Heaven” 4/19/2015
Music: Jason Shelton “Love Break our Hearts”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9JT97PH1ZA
Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church UU choir in Charlottesville sings "Love, Break our Hearts". Rev.
Jason Shelton wrote this song for Charlottesville after the events of August 12, 2017. (White
supremacists invaded our town with guns, sticks, torches, and tear gas, resulting in the death of 3
and the injury of dozens of others.) Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr. delivered the sermon at TJMC-UU
the day the choir sang this song. The choir is directed by the nationally recognized music scholar
Scott Deveaux.
Art:
From the website https://www.meadville.edu/library-and-archives/special-collections/sankofa-special-
collection/:
“The Sankofa Special Collection serves as a repository of archival materials, biographies, worship
resources, and images that tell the story of Unitarian Universalists of Color. It celebrates the experiences
of leaders and laity of African American, Native American, Asian and South Asian, Pacific Island, and
Middle Eastern descent; members of the African Diaspora; and those who identify as multiracial and/or
multicultural.
The purpose of the Sankofa Special Collection is
reflected in its name. Sankofa means looking to the past in order to move forward into the future.
Sankofa looks into the silences and absences created by white supremacy, to amplify what has been
muted and to recover what has been obscured. Sankofa brings to the present the history of the People
of Color who have made a home in Unitarian Universalism. It looks into the future to preserve and make
accessible the substantial and ongoing impact of Unitarian Universalists of Color. Led by the
communities it serves, the Sankofa Special Collection creates policies and methods of organization so
that People of Color can locate their identities and experiences within Unitarian Universalism.
This special collection is meant to evolve. Our goal is for it to be a resource and a repository for the
study and exploration of Unitarian Universalism’s relationship to race and culture. As the past is
unearthed and new related resources are developed, they will find a home here. As new history is made
every day, it will be preserved and made accessible here.”
March
Reconciliation
Olympia Brown
http://uudb.org/articles/olympiabrown.html
Chalice Lighting: Adapted from a plaque
Olympia Brown
Preacher of Universalism
Disrupter and Champion of Women's Citizenship Rights
Forerunner of the New Era
The flame of her spirit still burns today.
Reading:
https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/adults/ethics/workshop6/191917.shtml
Lyn Cox https://www.sksm.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/olympiabrown.pdf
Story for All Ages: https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/children/toolbox/session7/olympia-brown
Sample Sermon: Laurie Carter Noble http://olympiabrown.org/OLYMPIA_BROWN_SERMON.html
Beth Dana https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8UZ0eefaio
Music: Sister Suffragette from Mary Poppins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds8cKgPdE6M
Art:
April
Inclusion
Quillen Shinn
http://uudb.org/articles/quillenhamiltonshinn.html
Chalice Lighting: “From this time forth, brethren, let our watchword be, 'Go forward!' or 'Come
forward!' and all up and down your great rivers and scattered over your broad prairies will be set the
beaconlights of our holy faith to light up with hope and joy the coming years.” ~ Quillen Hamilton Shinn
Reading: “Quillen Shinn Universalist Circuit Rider” by Kimberly French, UU World, 10/15/2007 Fall 2007
https://www.uuworld.org/articles/quillen-shinn-universalist-circuit-rider
https://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/quillen-hamilton-shinn/
Story for All Ages: https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/adults/river/workshop16/178924.shtml
Sample Sermon: Paul Sprecher “The Curious Case of Quillen Shinn”
https://fpuubridgewater.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2019-05-05-The-Curious-Case-of-Quillen-
Shinn.pdf
Music: “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”
https://hymnary.org/text/come_thou_fount_of_every_blessing
Art:
https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/adults/river/workshop16/178931.shtml
May
Multireligious
Kenneth Leo Patton (He was ordained a Unitarian minister but the story of the Charles Street Meeting
House is so compelling https://www.sksm.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/patton.pdf and )
http://uudb.org/articles/kennethpatton.html
Chalice Lighting: ““The arts are the voices of humanity. Through sculpture, painting, music, literature,
the dance, drama, and architecture, [we] communicate [our] most profound thoughts and emotion to
one another.” ~ Kenneth Patton
Or
“Our task is to be who we are, in every way we can be; our salvation proceeding in putting ourselves
back together after each tumble...We irridesce, shine, and radiate. We exclaim and roar: we are.” ~
Kenneth Patton
Reading: Erik Walker
http://a-ministers-musings.blogspot.com/2006/05/temple-meeting-house.html
Vincent Silliman’s Berry Street Essay in 1977
https://www.uuma.org/mpage/BSE1977
Story for All Ages: https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/children/home/session13/60163.shtml
Sample Sermon: Kenneth Patton “Art and Symbols for A World” two parts
http://www.uuchurch.org/worship/sermons/historic-sermon-recordings/
Music: The Earth is Home, words by Kenneth Patton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1GfhPuJq_M
Art:
http://nyscu.org/Publications/CSUMH_poster.html
June
Salvation
Joseph Jordan (pronounced JER-dun)
http://uudb.org/articles/josephjordan.html
Chalice Lighting: “The spirit of Love will be intensified to Godly proportions when reciprocal love exists
between the entire human race and each of its individual members. That love must be based upon
mutual respect for the differences in color, language and worship, even as we appreciate and accept
with gratitude the differences that tend to unite the male and female of all species. We do not find
those differences obstacles to love. ~ George de Benneville
Reading: Darkening the Doorways by Mark Morrison-Reed pp. 92-97
Story for All Ages: https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/youth/virtueethics/workshop4/building-respect
Sample Sermon: Patrick Murfin (really a blog)
http://patrickmurfin.blogspot.com/2014/06/joseph-jordanpioneer-black-universalist.html
Megan Lloyd Joiner
http://www.usnh.org/sermon-a-visionary-faith-a-practice-and-promise-sunday/
Music: “We’ll Build a Land”
Art:
More General Resources on Universalism:
THE UNIVERSALIST HERITAGE: Keynote Addresses on Universalist History, Ethics and Theology (1976 -
1992) Published by The New York State Convention, Second Edition
http://nyscu.org/Publications/Universalist_Heritage.pdf