A sermon by Jaco B. ten Hove, co-minister
Paint Branch UU Church, Adelphi, MD
— December 4, 2005 —
INTRODUCTION TO READING [following Child Dedication Ceremony]
Young people inspire in us a belief in the goodness of humanity. And should we find it hard to believe than any of them—or any of us—might in fact be destined for eternal misery, damned by a judging deity—well, in that posture we exhibit our Universalist leanings.
The historical Universalist heresy was to deny the existence of both hell and original sin, a still-prevalent Christian doctrine that can be made immensely complicated, but in essence it says that human beings are born sinful, thanks to Adam and Eve’s primal transgression. Then, because of this original sin, we must seek divine forgiveness—often mediated by authoritarian religion—or else live our life unsaved and risk the fate of the damned.
This is powerful doctrine, still captivating many of our 21st century neighbors, but for over two centuries now it has been steadily opposed by Universalists who instead posit a thoroughly loving God who would never damn anyone to eternal misery. All souls will be saved, a belief known as Universal Salvation.
But just as steadily, from more orthodox corners, comes a compelling challenge: if all souls are automatically saved and there is no threat of hell to inspire people to behave, how can you control the common human inclination toward moral corruption?
Two centuries ago it was no easier task to uphold the inclusive Universalist position than it is today. But the most influential Universalist minister of the whole 19th century, Hosea Ballou, gave it a really good try with the publication, exactly two centuries ago this year, of an astounding and influential book called A Treatise on Atonement. This was one of the earliest defenses of Universalist heresy and it drew wide attention—from detractors and converts alike.
Ballou got right in the face of his theological opponents and took apart their arguments in polite and plain language, but he also vividly promoted an expanded vision of Christianity that stirred the pot vociferously with staunch Universalism and even controversial strains of Unitarianism.
Our first experience of Hosea Ballou’s strident but encouraging voice this morning comes from the last section of the Treatise, as he expressed a stirring vision of the Universalism of his day, 200 years ago.
FROM A TREATISE ON ATONEMENT BY HOSEA BALLOU
[pg 226-27, 231, 239]First published in 1805, then slightly revised by H.B. in 1832.
This edition published by UUA Skinner House Books, 1986,
with an Introduction by Ernest Cassara.
(T)he doctrine of universal holiness and happiness opens an infinite field in which…to learn the goodness of God… (I)t is the most animating to a benevolent soul of any that was ever believed in our world, and lays the broadest foundation of exhortation to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, to live sober, righteous, and godly lives. How strong are the inducements from such glorious views of God…to lead us to imitate such unbounded goodness in all our intentions and actions…
The cause of truth wants nothing in its service but the fruits of the Spirit, which are love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. All the divisions which now exist among Christians, or ever have existed, were caused wholly by the want of those graces…
If we agree in love, there is no disagreement that can do us any injury. But if we do not, no other agreement can do us any good… I look with strong expectation for that period when all sin and every degree of unreconciliation will be destroyed by the divine power of that love which is stronger than death, which many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown; in which alone I put my trust. Then…the eternal radiance shall smile, and God shall be all in all.
SERMON… Hosea Ballou: The First Unitarian Universalist (by Jaco B. ten Hove)
Universalist minister Hosea Ballou was the first of at least two others by that very memorable name: a son and a grandnephew, both also Universalist ministers, as was a famous cousin, Adin Ballou.
Hosea Ballou (the first) has been called one of the most important American religious leaders in the 19th century. The fact that his most notable publication is now exactly two very full centuries old stirred my renewed interest in his story and contributions.
Hosea was the 11th child born to his New Hampshire parents. He arrived in 1771, which happened to be the year after the English Universalist preacher John Murray arrived on this continent. The timing is significant because although some other early proponents of the universalist idea were afoot in the New England of that time, it was the charismatic and energetic Murray who quickly emerged as the most visible birth father of an organized sect of American Universalism.
Then, in a style familiar to many parents before and since, Murray became distressed by the developments brought about by the next generation of Universalists, led by young Hosea Ballou and his Treatise on Atonement.
I’ll delve deeper into the theological dynamics of this evolution in a moment, but first some larger context. I believe that by locating our own personal journeys in a bigger picture we can find greater meaning in our roots—with the hoped-for effect today that we might all strengthen our religious identity as Unitarian Universalists.
I’m particularly interested in lifting up elements of our liberal religious heritage that provide strong evidence of how our courageous ancestors were on some of the same paths we are on still, one of which, in this instance, is to uphold the value of religious inclusion.
This is still a radical proposition— religious inclusion, since most organized aspects of the human spiritual instinct spend inordinate amounts of energy and verbiage on declaring who doesn’t belong to their particular brand of religiosity. Keeping out non-believers, infidels, heathens, heretics, etc., seems to pre-occupy the more orthodox in cultures far and wide, ancient and current.
But I maintain that it is our rather unique UU contribution to honor and embody an alternative posture, what Hosea Ballou called “something more interesting than tradition has taught.” We seek to both establish high standards for ethical living and model an inclusive spirit—“an infinite field” in which to learn and demonstrate “the doctrine of universal holiness and happiness.” In other words, we do not believe in hell. We believe that all souls are saved. This is our tradition, and it’s a good bit of what sets us apart from the religious mainstream.
The poet Edwin Markham was not a UU, as far as I know, but he could have been speaking for us when he wrote a famous and inspiring stanza, perhaps speaking about the kind of critic Hosea Ballou faced:
He drew a circle that shut me out–
[Source: The Best Loved Poems of the American People.
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.
Doubleday, 1936. p.67. Complete poem: “Outwitted.”]
Ballou’s Universalist circle was wide indeed, stopping only at inclusion of all humanity in a system of salvation that believed heaven large enough to contain every soul, with no exceptions. Such belief was not original to Ballou, however, even though he took it another next level. Perhaps surprisingly to us, he appeared to be influenced by the brief but relevant writings of Revolutionary war hero Ethan Allen, whose name we today might associate mostly with furniture. But Allen had stridently articulated a God of infinite goodness, minus any eternal punishment.
And stretching way back further, beyond John Murray and other English Universalists, we find in the 3rd century of the Common Era an acclaimed Christian theologian named Origen of Alexandria, who advanced the idea of a “restoration of all souls.” [From the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy— http://www.iep.utm.edu/o/origen.htm]
Like Ballou, Origen’s scriptural touchstone was the First Corinthians reference [15:28] that God is “all in all.” Origen, however, rejected the concepts of both hell and heaven, proposing his version of universal salvation as a less specific but eventual reunion of all souls with God.
If we today seem to have traveled a long theological path since the eras of Origen, Murray and Ballou, look again, and use the lens of inclusion/exclusion as an ethic. The specific issues may shift, but at their core are still some very similar and fundamental disagreements about the nature and destiny of the human creature, especially whether ultimately some of us matter and others don’t.
It is also worth remembering Universalism’s deep Christian roots, especially when your confused relative or co-worker or neighbor worries out loud that you’ve become entranced by the Unification Church or Unity, both of which are more recent inventions that share the first three nominal letters but not nearly the theological pedigree of Universalism.
Of course, if you own up to your Universalist roots you may also then have to answer the same demanding question Ballou fielded: if all souls are automatically saved and there is no threat of hell to inspire people to behave, how can you control the common human inclination toward moral corruption?
Let me give you an idea of how Hosea Ballou responded to this conundrum in A Treatise on Atonement. This is 200 years ago, remember, and Ballou is securely embedded in the male-dominated Christian realm, albeit the liberal side, and writing for wide consumption, so I have made some small edits in his paragraph styling to soften what might otherwise sound rather stilted to our ears.
Ballou is also very much a child of the Enlightenment and its Age of Reason, when philosophers built a new and avowedly rational approach to ethics, aesthetics, and knowledge. Throughout his book, from angle after angle, he described an opponent’s stance and then very logically dismembered it, leading the reader inexorably to a much more rational Universalist perspective.
In this, Ballou showed decidedly Unitarian leanings, reflecting his more scholarly neighbors who became well known for their rationalist religion. No Universalist before him had attempted such an innovative and methodical affirmation of their faith, and some of his elders, such as John Murray, were quite put off by both his style and his content. But Ballou forged ahead:
Perhaps (you) may say we are not to use our reason in matters of religion. I answer: if we are not to understand the things of God by scripture and reason, I am at a loss to know how to come at them. [p. 128]
What he came after were stock Christian theologies of exclusion, which he thoroughly refuted. For instance, using some impressively rational steps to show the inconsistencies of a belief in eternal punishment, Ballou declared that sin is real but finite, meaning that human beings make transgressions in this life only. Then it follows that finite behavior cannot reasonably be punished by infinite misery, such as is proposed for those who end up in a fiery hell.
This was a large and bold theological leap away from the very common Christian belief that sin did have infinite consequences. It also left behind a wrathful God and instead opened up the attractive vista of an entirely loving deity.
In his arguments, Ballou virtually begged for the application of sound reason to religious claims, especially the notion of eternal punishment:
Look, ye readers, and submit to astonishment at what has been believed in as divine truth!
He could not fathom how Christians might preach a God who would select only some to be saved. Showing some fangs, he named the partialness of this view:
With the rest, God is still displeased…and employs his power and wisdom to make the works of his own hand as miserable as their natures will bear, for being just such creatures as he knew they would be before he made them.
[p. 72-3]
You can almost hear him pause and then add, “I don’t think so!” No, God is too large and benevolent to be forced into such a harsh, inconsistent posture, declared Ballou. All sin is punished in this life and then all creatures will be reconciled to an eternally loving God. Universal reconciliation, he called it.
He also broached new ground for Universalism by fiercely disputing the Trinity. (This belief in a three-part Godhead of Father, Son and Holy Ghost was held by almost all other Christians including most if not all Universalists of the previous generation, such as John Murray.)
Ballou brought many Universalists around to a rational unitarian position, but he didn’t do it with subtlety. For instance:
I contend that if (Christ) be the Son of God, he is the son of himself, and is his own father. (This) is to confound good sense. If Jesus Christ were really God, it must be argued that God really died! Again, if the Godhead consists of three distinct persons, and each of those persons be infinite, (then) the whole Godhead amounts to the amazing sum of infinity multiplied by three!
[p. 91-2]
The Trinity just did not hold up under his reasoned scrutiny. There in 1805, the unitarian tide was rising in New England, although still two decades away from any formal organization. Universalist Ballou’s leadership into the unitarian heresy contributed a lot toward the formation of some common theological ground, even though the two denominations rarely met socially, due to class distinctions of the day.
Generally upper crust Unitarians paid little heed to their generally more countrified Universalist cousins, but the surging Methodists were very agitated by Ballou’s rhetoric and as they themselves made large inroads into the American religious landscape they set out to counter this outbreak of blasphemy. Ballou debated with Methodists a lot, and as usual he relied heavily for theological support on the scriptural letters of Paul.
For instance, in Paul’s first Epistle to the Corinthians [5:22] is the telling line, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Using such texts, Ballou could go toe to toe with anyone and thoroughly defend Universalism.
There is no end to (the) proofs of universal reconciliation to God; for everything of a moral nature testifies (to) it… The truth of Christ’s dying for all is the foundation of St. Paul’s argument on this subject—(a) truth, the apostle says, he was constrained to believe by the love of Christ.
[p. 221]
The story is told of when Ballou was debating with a frustrated Methodist preacher, and so constantly referring to Paul’s letters that the Methodist exclaimed, “I suppose you think St. Paul was the greatest Universalist!” To which, Hosea replied quickly:
By no means. Jesus Christ was the greatest Universalist! [Intro, p. viii]…
My opponent perhaps will say (as many have said to me in conversation)…, “Anything may be proved by Scripture.”
To which I reply (that) there is one thing that the scriptures do not prove… and that is the endless misery of a moral being.
[p. 210]
For Ballou, Jesus was the central character in his religion, but a fully human one, whose atonement on the cross was less to reconcile humanity with God than the other way around. God had been so misunderstood as wrathful, vengeful and judging that Jesus was sent on a divine mission to demonstrate that love and peace were a more accurate representation. His violent death drew attention to that fact and should inspire Christians toward the vision of goodness expressed in his life rather than a fear of ongoing divine retribution.
Which does, however, bring me round again to the recurring demand made of Universalism by Methodists and any others who could not abide this suggestion of radical inclusivity and total divine benevolence. How to control the baser human instincts without the hammer of hell to hold over those who would misbehave?
All of Ballou’s rational grounding in Jesus and a loving God supported his conclusion that anyone holding a Universalist understanding of the world just wouldn’t ever be moved to depravity, but would instead endeavor to align their life with that great divine benevolence.
How strong are the inducements from such glorious views of God…to lead us to imitate such unbounded goodness in all our intentions and actions.
[p. 231]
This, then, gives me the opportunity to dust off a famous observation about the contrasting attitudes of the two groups of early American religious liberals, who much later would merge into the long name we carry today. It was said that while the Universalists believed God was too good to damn anyone, the Unitarians believed they were too good to be damned [attributed to Thomas Starr King].
More to the point, Ballou refuted the suggestion that universal happiness implies universal selfishness. He distinguished between the merits of two religious approaches:
The objector will say, “To admit that our happiness is the grand object of all that we do destroys the purity of religion and reduces the whole thing to nothing but selfishness.” To which I reply:
(Those) acting for (their) own happiness if (sought) in the heavenly system of universal benevolence, knowing that (their) own happiness is connected with (that) of their fellow (beings), which induces them to do justly and to deal mercifully with all (others)— (they are) no more selfish than (they) ought to be.
But (those) acting for (their) own happiness if (sought) in the narrow circle of partiality and covetousness—(their) selfishness is irreligious and wicked.
[p. 34-5]
Can you hear an early echo of our Unitarian Universalist Seventh Principle in his orientation? When we know our own fate is connected to that of others, then our self-interest is not narrow, but large and inclusive.
Universalists know this, said Ballou, because they understand God to be the source of that “universal benevolence.” And thus, he reasoned:
…Is it not wrong to make a separation where the Almighty does not? Is (God) not perfectly joined to (all) creation? Do we not live, move and have our being in God?
[p. 81-2]
Since Ballou’s time, we have continued to live and move, theologically, and 200 years is a long span over which to remain relevant, so certainly some of Ballou’s logic and language falls away with the decades, even though the essential debate continues, perhaps amazingly. But I, as a non-Christian Unitarian Universalist, am drawn to his unflinching appreciation of a positive life force that stands out in hearty contrast to so much else of what still passes for accepted theology.
Now, it must be said that one of the reasons Hosea Ballou himself stands out as a positive force of history is the general weakness of subsequent Universalist preachers who couldn’t sustain the convincing but radical thrusts he established. It may be no coincidence that Universalism thrived until Ballou died, mid-century.
He had led a temporary triumph of what was called Ultra-Universalism, labeled by some as “death and glory” Universalism, since his system predicted universal salvation immediately upon death. The love of God is so overpowering, he would say, that every soul is instantly cleansed as it enters the afterlife.
This was a very distinct, even revolutionary calling card that drew many into the fold, especially refugees from the “hellfire and brimstone” Bible-thumping that was selling guilt and fear throughout the Northeast.
But Ballou’s optimism proved to be too much even for most of his liberal colleagues to bear. Many preferred to believe that there would just have to be some limited punishment for sin after death before all souls would ultimately be restored to union with God. This harkened back to the ancient but still persuasive “restoration” theology taught by Origen of Alexandria.
Without a Hosea Ballou to inspire the extreme commitment required to believe as faithfully as he did, especially during the trying years around the Civil War, his successors spent their energy arguing over details, such as exactly how long the ultimate restoration would actually take, and Universalism as a movement limped into the 20th century.
But with the advantage of more distant perspective, I wonder if Ballou wasn’t just ahead of his time. Our Universalism of the 21st century, while relying less on Biblical language, per se, does depend on some of the same strands of connective tissue that he wove 200 years ago. For instance, we draw inspiration from the interdependent web of existence, but maybe we are finally confirming Ballou’s challenge: It is “wrong to make a separation where the Almighty does not”!
And his early merging of Unitarian and Universalist ideas led others to do the same in his generation and from then on. He saw the coherence of rationally derived beliefs and expressed them with enviable and effective vigor.
Meanwhile, we today still have to defend against the imposition of a judging deity that selects some over others and only thus is the expressed cause of moral behavior. If we have the words and the grounding and the courage, we would probably profess a more inclusive and inwardly inspiring system in tune with Ballou’s vision of a benevolent “eternal radiance…all in all.”
Do we have the words and the grounding and the courage to declare unequivocally, in our own way, that all souls are saved?
We might still be inspired by Ballou’s expansive universal reconciliation—an vision so inclusive that he projected a “divine animation” embracing all humanity.
I do not conceive that its agency is confined particularly to names, sects, denominations, people or kingdoms. The word…is everywhere, operating, in some degree, in all hearts.
[p. 124]
As we enter into the 200th Christmas season since Hosea Ballou put forth his Treatise on Atonement, may all hearts connected to ours—which is to say all hearts—feel the urge toward peace that we say is the message brought into the world by the baby Jesus, who grew up to become “the greatest Universalist!”
It matters how we frame and explain These Things. It matters that, with love, we have the wit to draw inviting circles; that we both establish high standards for ethical living and model an inclusive spirit.
It matters that you and yours are among us here, as the current generation of caretakers of this essential liberal religious vision of the universe, a message with deep roots that can feed a world hungry for strength in the face of severe trials, if we can give it new voice for a new millennium.
Come, ye listeners, and submit to astonishment at the sustenance that is our heritage. There is no hell to fear. Love and peace are the holy incentives toward morality. All souls are saved. So it is and so may it be.