America’s Real Religion

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— The words of A. Powell Davies, arranged into a sermon by Jaco B. ten Hove —
— Paint Branch UU Church, Adelphi, MD — March 16, 2008 —

INTRODUCTION:

Arthur Powell Davies (1902-1957) and “The Faith Behind Freedom”
Presented by Worship Associate Don Henderson

Today we dip into our local Unitarian heritage to sample some bold assertions by the Rev. Dr. A. POWELL DAVIES who is most notable for his influential stint in Washington, D.C., as minister of All Souls Church, Unitarian, from 1944 until his untimely death in 1957. The Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography calls him:

a renowned orator and a prominent social activist for civil liberties, government accountability, civilian control of atomic energy, family planning, and desegregation. As a denominational leader, he helped push for the formulation of a more visionary and explicit statement of Unitarian faith that contributed to congregational extension.

One such statement of Unitarian faith came from an inspirational group process that Davies led during the early stages of World War II. Other than its outdated gender language, “The Faith Behind Freedom” expresses powerful sentiments and vision that are remarkably still current to dynamics in today’s America. We commend it to you. A reformatted but unedited version of this short document is featured after the sermon below.

Powell Davies was instrumental in starting at least seven Unitarian congregations in the DC suburbs, including ours in 1954. He is listed as an ex officio member of our inaugural Board of Trustees, and the first few years of Sunday services at our College Park Unitarian Fellowship featured his piped-in sermons, live from All Souls Church via telephone wire.

Sadly, a blood clot claimed his life 50 years ago, at age 55. Three sitting Supreme Court Justices (Hugo Black, Harold Burton, and William O. Douglas) attended the memorial service, among many, many others. Today, our metro area has the largest concentration of Unitarian Universalists outside of Boston in large measure because of the influential efforts of A. Powell Davies, more than half a century ago.

Our co-minister, Jaco ten Hove, will now present a sermon he has crafted from Powell’s 1949 book, America’s Real Religion (which has a Foreword called, “The Struggle for the Mind of America,” followed by chapters with titles such as “The Beliefs of the Founding Fathers,” “The Religion of Fear Strikes Back,” “Apostles, Heretics and Saints,” and “The Faith That Could Unite Us”).

The Book, America’s Real Religion, is a separate, much longer publication than the previously mentioned “Faith Behind Freedom” statement, which bears Powell’s influence but not his name. The two are quite connected in time and theme, but this sermon is culled only from the book.

Having edited mostly just for inclusive language and the effective flow of a small fraction of the book’s text, Jaco will speak the words of A. Powell Davies from America’s Real Religion, without attempting to BE him. Consider it a fresh interpretation of material that he thinks you will find stunningly relevant to our time.

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SERMON: “America’s Real Religion”

The words of A. Powell Davies, arranged into a sermon by Jaco B. ten Hove
Culled from the book, America’s Real Religion, by A. Powell Davies
A. Powell Davies Memorial Committee, All Souls Church; 1949, Beacon Press

Editing note: With great respect for the author and his work, I have included in the manuscript below various punctuation marks that I hope will not detract from the reading experience. Additions or changes I’ve made in the text are indicated in [brackets] and small deletions or new segues are shown by ellipses… (A few regular parenthetical expressions belong to the author.) Italics are as made by the author. All adjustments are intended to excerpt from and still maintain the integrity and meaning of the original document. —JBtH

General Dwight D. Eisenhower was [once] rebuked for holding religious beliefs similar to those of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln: beliefs which were also held, in varying measure, by Franklin, the Adamses, Madison, Mason, Monroe and most of the [Founders]. They are the beliefs which have shaped American history.

The occasion was a luncheon assembly [in late] September, 1948. The speaker was the Reverend Father John Tracy Ellis, Professor of American Church History at Catholic University, who expressed himself as apprehensive for the future of the United States if we continue to rely for spiritual nurture upon what he called “the cult of democracy.”

To make clear what he meant, he reminded his audience that General Eisenhower, on the day that he became President of Columbia University, answered a reporter’s question concerning his religion in the following words:

“I am the most intensely religious man I know. Nobody goes through six years of war without faith. That doesn’t mean I adhere to any sect. A democracy cannot exist without a religious base. I believe in democracy.”

It will be noted that in this affirmation, General Eisenhower says: first, that he believes intensely in religion; second, that wartime experience has reinforced his conviction that religion is an urgent need; third, that he has not looked to any religious sect to meet this need; and fourth, that there is a religion not confined to a sect but which is the spiritual basis of democracy, and it is this religion that he intensely believes.

[S]uch an affirmation is not new, but merely reaffirms the faith of those Americans who have left the deepest imprint on our national history—beginning with the [Founders]… In [describing] the true relation between democracy and the religion which is its natural basis…General Eisenhower, far from confessing a casual or inferior belief, was declaring his adherence to the [most ambitious] faith attainable.

…Father Ellis, [however], pronounced the General’s words “a shocking statement.” …As a priest he is obliged to believe that his own faith is the only true one, and that it ought to be the sole religion of the United States of America… We can have no real religion in this country, he tells us, so long as we continue to place our reliance in the religion which is the natural basis of democracy. Our only hope, he implies, is to supersede this religion with that of the Roman Church. And I think we should admire Father Ellis for his forthrightness and sincerity.

But unfortunately—and I wish very much that it were otherwise—Father Ellis has not entirely understood American history. He told his audience, for instance, that the “movement” which seeks to advance the cause of “a new religion of democracy” began [recently] (with the publication of what he called “a scurrilous primer,” a [1941] manifesto entitled “The City of Man[: A Declaration on World Democracy]”). This is quite inaccurate. The “movement” began when the United States was founded, and its manifesto is…the Declaration of Independence…

These [kinds of] comparisons…are too often used with the intention of obscuring the main question. Which is this: how does it happen that authoritarianism of any kind has been allowed to gain the spiritual initiative in America? Was Father Ellis partly right? Are the spiritual values of democracy so feeble, so ineffectual that we can no longer rely upon them? Or was General Eisenhower right? That while “a democracy cannot exist without a religious base,” democracy has a religious base; and that it is possible to believe intensely in democracy if you believe in the religion that sustains it?

…[I]t is indeed the main question before the American people. Freedom can have no future, and perhaps the nation itself can have no future, unless we believe, and far more intensely than in recent times, in the religion General Eisenhower was reaffirming: the religion which is indispensable to freedom and without which democracy can have no inner nurture.

…There are those who think of democracy as merely a system: that is to say, a piece of machinery. This is one of our most dangerous half-truths. Democracy implies a system— and one suited to its aims. But democracy is not itself a system. Democracy is a [degree] of civilization: the [most ambitious] yet attempted and the hardest to maintain. It is also the only level upon which [humanity] can hope to solve its problems: problems which have become terrifying in their urgency owing to the vast powers placed in human hands by science….

There are also other reasons why the democratic level is essential, of which we will take space to name only one. Because democracy exalts freedom, not dogma, it can be world- uniting. The attempt to unite the world upon the basis of dogma, whether political, religious, or any other kind, is sure to fail. Dogma divides. It is dogma that is dividing the world now… Democracy, however, which converts the war-to-the-death of dogma into the peaceful conflict of opinion, can provide the world with unity.

But if it is to do this, we must understand much better what democracy is, spiritually. Without its spiritual content, democracy…will be emptied of what gives it substance and will collapse. What, then, in spiritual terms, is the definition of democracy? Most simply stated, democracy is the social and political expression of the religious principle that all [people] are [related in the human] family; democracy is [relatedness]…unrestricted by nation, race or creed.

If this is our basic faith and if we are willing to reject beliefs of every kind that contradict or limit it, then we are reaffirming the religion upon which democracy is founded and freedom has a chance to claim the future.

…As to what, in actual fact, Americans believe, the majority… are not much attached to formal creeds. I would even venture to suggest that in spite of institutional allegiances, they are so much more attached to the basic democratic faith than to all others that, in a pinch, this is the faith to which they would adhere…

For most Americans have the same basic faith. Regardless of what else they may believe (or half believe) this is the faith they live by. But at the present time, it is not strongly enough asserted. Too much is taken for granted. And too much neglected. Which is a situation that cannot be allowed to continue. It has permitted a dangerous loss of spiritual initiative, which could end in our real religion losing the present struggle—the struggle not only for the mind of America but for the future of the world.

…There has always been a contradiction in religion. This is because there is a conflict between the two chief sources from which religion springs. Simply stated, one of these sources is fear, and the other, for want of a more inclusive word, we shall call yearning…

[There are] two things…that sprang from [the reasonable] fear [experienced by our early ancestors]: superstition and subjection; and they carried with them as their natural counterparts, priestcraft and tyranny. Let us note the relationship carefully:… they have gone together through all the course of history1 [—superstition and subjection, priestcraft and tyranny]; they belong together; they stem from the same source: fear.

But again and again in the story of nations, fear has been challenged—and the challenge has increased in force. For, as we have indicated, fear was not the only source of early religion; there was also…yearning.

From yearning—the kindlier outreach of the mind and heart—came all that made [people] feel that in the mystery about them there was something that responded to their loneliness. Just as from fear came superstition and the mind’s enslavement, so from yearning came reassurance and release. There was courage; there was hope. Something could fill the lonely heart with song. The “wilderness” could sometimes bloom; the “place of desolation” could be glad…

Thus there began to be new uses for imagination: instead of the nightmare, the dream; instead of the superstitious ritual, the poem… And so the vision came. Prophets arose; and poets and the music-makers. Fear was challenged by the dreamers of dreams.

Meanwhile, from yearning also came the need for human societies to cling together. It was not fear alone that formed the social groups. There was a growing sense of…the fellowship of those who share a common fate. And just as fear, through necessity, forced social groupings to enlarge, yearning invited it… Something reached out. A widening communion grew. When individual loneliness was mingled with the loneliness of all, it changed. Out of it came tenderness and sympathy, and new perceptions grew… Here was the better key to unlock mysteries; here was the path to nobler living, the freeing of the mind, the fullness of the heart, the true redemption of the spirit.

This, then, is the definition of the conflict: from fear came superstition and tyranny, with its burden of subjection and slavery. But from yearning came courage and liberation… [T]he conquest of fear produced freedom of the mind and a widening [kinship] of equal[ity]— which, as we have seen, is the spiritual basis of democracy.

Now, except for little lighted spaces, history is the story of the predominance of fear. Fear has ruled and yearning challenged. The traditional beliefs depend on fear. The traditional religions are religions of fear. Traditional societies are built on fear[, with] superstition and tyranny their embodiments. And the Old World was filled with these embodiments: it had carried the burden of them for many centuries… [But t]he time had come to turn into aims and purposes what had begun long ago as hopes and dreams, when yearning first defied the thraldom laid upon the mind by fear…

It was this opportunity that the [Founders] used, like many of the great Americans who followed, not only in developing a better political system, appropriate to free [citizens], but in achieving a [more ambitious] religion, suited to free minds.

…It was a turning point of history. It was more than that: because of what would follow it would prove a turning point in human destiny. From this world of ferment, gathering strength for revolutionary changes, the American colonials came. They came with a New…hope, a New…impulse which they only partly understood. But they knew that they wanted larger freedom: freedom of the person; and they also knew—but not at first so clearly—that they wanted freedom of opinion, freedom of conscience, freedom of the mind…

By the time of the [Founders], this process had already gone far enough to make religious liberty not only a preference but a necessity if the colonies were to get along together; and equally necessary if they were to unite against oppression from abroad…

It is significant to recall that as [the new nation’s first] President, [George] Washington confirmed the constitutional principle that the government of the United States is not founded upon any one religion. In the Treaty with Tripoli, which he initiated…this is completely explicit. “The government of the United States,” the Treaty says, “is not in any sense founded upon the Christian Religion.” What this means is that the government of the United States is no more founded upon the Christian religion than upon the Jewish religion, or any other religion. It is founded upon freedom of religion.

But does…this signify that Washington himself had no religious faith? Was he—as his enemies insisted—an infidel? The word infidel means without religious faith. The only religious faith, however, that Washington was without was the faith of the creeds: the faith of traditional religious institutions.

…Washington was a Deist: that is to say, he rejected the super-natural and the miraculous and believed in the existence of God on the evidence of reason and Nature only; he thought of God as an Ultimate Cause and as Providence, rather than as a being accessible through rituals or as a God to be worshipped according to set forms…

…Benjamin Franklin was a free thinker in religion, too, and accused of being a Unitarian as well as a Deist—which he undoubtedly was. His whole approach was scientific and empirical, and he believed in the freedom of the mind to arrive at whatever truth persuaded it. Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, he wrote…that he regarded the teaching of Jesus as the best the world had ever seen, but he feared it had been corrupted; and Jesus himself, although he revered him, he did not accept as divine.2

Shall we say, then, that Franklin was without religion? That his spiritual values were ineffectual? And shall we be able to maintain such a charge in face of the evidence of an entire lifetime of extraordinary achievement in almost every field of hopeful human venture? How many are there, equipped with an orthodox creed, who can match him in devotion to truth and justice?

…One of the most observant and wisest of the thinkers of his time, equally at home both in the New…and the Old [realms], Franklin knew that history had reached a turning point, and that the reign of the religion of fear was declining. He knew that if there was anything God demanded of him, it was the bold use of his reason and the rejection of everything that clung to ignorance…

Holding a similar faith to Washington’s and Franklin’s were Madison, Mason, Monroe, and most of the leading figures of the period.3 … Charles Beard, in The Rise of American Civilization, writes of them as follows:4

“From various directions the…new philosophy of naturalism and humanity…came into America, spreading widely among the intellectual leaders of the American Revolution and making them doubly dangerous characters in the eyes of Anglican Tories. When the crisis came, Jefferson, Paine, John Adams, Washington, Franklin, Madison, and many lesser lights were to be reckoned among either the Unitarians or the Deists. It was not Cotton Mather’s God to whom the authors of the Declaration of Independence appealed; it was to ‘Nature’s God.’”

[It was actually Thomas] Jefferson’s religion more than that of any other individual, [that] signified and represented, together with the faith and vision of Thomas Paine, the spiritual source and inner substance of the American Revolution… [But w]e can look through a hundred magazines containing articles about Jefferson, [and] nowhere do we see an honest or revealing word about his religion. Why?

The reason is that Jefferson was a revolutionary in religion, too! The histories don’t tell you that. …[T]hey do not tell you that Jefferson said that it was spiritual tyranny to require acceptance of the creeds; or that he held belief to be a matter for the individual conscience; or that he said that orthodox beliefs were largely superstition… He did not think there was any special, miraculous revelation of God, but that free inquiry and reason would reveal religion just as it would anything else. He utterly believed in freedom of the mind.

…Jefferson…[declared his opposition], not to Christianity, but
“to the corruptions of Christianity…(Jesus) went beyond all other teachers in inculcating a universal philanthropy, not only to kindred and friends, but…uniting all in one family in the bonds of love, peace, common wants and common aids. [Italics supplied]…”5

…The sum of pure religion, [according to Jefferson], is to love God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves. Like Washington and Franklin, he was a Deist… He believed that God was manifested in the natural working of the universe and in [human lives]. And near the end of his life, he wrote these words: “I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian.”6

No one should quote this saying to make a sectarian claim for Jefferson. He was no sectarian. What he said about his churchgoing is as follows: “The population of my neighborhood is too slender, and is too much divided into sect [after sect] to maintain any one preacher well. I must therefore be content to be a Unitarian by myself.”7

…He knew that the religion of fear, with its superstitions and nightmares, belonged to the past. The contradiction in religion must be ended… Only free minds can make a free world… Jefferson had seen that something deep within the heart …requires it;…that it speaks in conscience and the moral law. That was Jefferson’s faith and he found it because something deeper than his own life had spoken to him. It was America’s real religion…. [He] declared his faith and gave it to the Nation as a founding principle. In doing so, he gave it to the world.

…[T]he founding principles, no less than the faith of the [Founders], were the outcome of a two-fold struggle: a struggle to throw off the bondage of restrictive dogmas and their institutions, and a struggle to end political tyranny. The two aims went together; they were—and are—inseparable. And their victory meant democracy—and the [more ambitious] religion which is the basis of democracy.

…Anyone, therefore, who wants to reverse this determining influence by imposing an authoritarian religion upon America must face the fact that [they are] bent upon destroying the very foundations of our national life [as they try] to rescind American history. And the same is true of anyone who wishes to impose a political tyranny… Authoritarian systems, whether of church or state, are not American, and they cannot become American.

…Religions of fear, with the exclusiveness—tribal, racial, ritualistic, creedal—that fear produces, [have been] challenged by [a more ambitious] religion: the religion of a common faith, a common yearning, a common liberation, a common hope and purpose, leading to freedom and [connection] without exclusiveness.

…The decisive emergence of this…level of religion came, as we saw, after many centuries of hope and prophecy, precisely when the new nation was being founded. That is how it happened that the [Founders] held this faith; they represented a transition point of history: a time when it was possible to adopt a new faith and by the power of it establish a new society…

To a fuller extent than ever before, and with a significance the full import of which only the future could unfold, the ancient conflict in religion was being resolved. A society was being built, not on fear and on the servitude that fear requires; but on freedom and [relatedness], and on the yearning for a larger, fuller life.

…We began this inquiry by reporting a rebuke administered to General Eisenhower by a prominent Roman Catholic clergyman. The General had made an impromptu affirmation of his religious faith in words which indicated his belief, not in the tenets of a sect, but in the religion which is the basis of democracy…the social and political expression of the religious principle that all [of us] are [related in the human] family…the spiritual unity of [which] is declared to be unrestricted by nation, race, or creed.

This is the principle upon which the United States was founded. General Eisenhower…was merely declaring his adherence to the faith of the [Founders]: a faith which…has been held by a numerous company of great Americans, including—without exception—the greatest.

…For the faith upon which democracy is based—the faith within democracy—is neither local nor ephemeral: it is the victory of truth over superstition, of liberty over servitude, of the universal over the provincial, of ennoblement over debasement,…of love over fear. It is…the religion, and the only one, that can lead the stricken world of the present into a happier, more hopeful future.

A. POWELL DAVIES
ALL SOULS CHURCH, WASHINGTON, D. C.
March 31, 1949

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SOURCES

  1. Letter to Horatio Gates Spafford, 1814; Padover, Saul K., Thomas Jefferson on Democracy, Pelican Books, 1946; p. 167. [In original book flow, this is footnote #I-1.]
  2. Franklin to Ezra Stiles, March 9, 1790; Smyth, Albert Henry, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (1907); Vol. X, pp. 83-85. [In original book flow, this is footnote #I-6.]
  3. See Robertson, J. M., A History of Free Thought in the 19th Century, Watts & Co., London, 1929; Vol. I, pp. 52-58; Koch, G. Adolph, Republican Religion, Henry Holt & Co., N. Y., 1953. [In original book flow, this is footnote #I-7.]
  4. Beard, Charles A. and Mary R., The Rise of American Civilization, Macmillan Co., N. Y., 1927; Vol. I, p. 449. [In original book flow, this is footnote #I-9.]
  5. Letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803; Lipscomb & Bergh, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. X, pp. 379-85 (Mayo, Bernard, Jefferson Himself, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1942; pp. 231-2.) [In original book flow, this is the only footnote in the Foreword.]
  6. Letter to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, June 26, 1822, Lipscomb & Bergh, op. cit., Vol. XV, pp. 383-5. (Mayo, Bernard, Jefferson Himself, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1942; p. 323.) [In original book flow, this is footnote #II-3.]
  7. Letter to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, January 8, 1825; Ford, Paul Leicester, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, N. Y. 1892-99; Vol. X, p. 336. (Mayo, op. cit., 325). [In original book flow, this is footnote #II-4.]

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Following hereon is the 1943 statement “Faith Behind Freedom,” which reflects the influence but not the name of A. Powell Davies, who led the group that created it. It is reformatted but unedited. A short history is included at the very end.

THE FAITH BEHIND FREEDOM

(Reformatted, but unedited, 2008, JBtH)

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A Declaration of Faith and Purpose,
first presented at the United Unitarian Advance Meeting, Boston, May 27, 1943

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UNIVERSAL FREEDOM

“We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed, by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

—Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, 1776, and Prophet of Unitarian Free Religion as the Faith of the Future.

UNITARIAN FREE RELIGION

“I am a living member of the great family of all souls….This is the bond of the Universal Church: no man can be excommunicated from it but by the death of goodness in his own breast.”

—William Ellery Channing, Founder of American Unitarianism, 1819.
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Note—The source of spiritual authority, for Unitarians, is the individual conscience. While there is a general body of belief, modern-minded and progressive in its emphasis, the variations which enrich it are unusually wide. All members of the fellowship are free to hold their own beliefs and equally at liberty to state them.

The present Declaration was prepared upon the basis of contributory statements from groups of Unitarian Ministers and Laymen [led by A. POWELL DAVIES], whose conviction is that in their heritage of free religion—as held by Jefferson and Lincoln no less than Channing, Emerson and Parker, and historically centered in the struggle for a universal, free humanity— they find the faith that meets the challenge of the present hour.

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RELIGION WITHOUT BARRIER OF RACE, CLASS OR CREED

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AT A TIME OF WORLD UPHEAVAL when all things are called in question it is well that men should search their hearts and know what faith they hold, and whether it can shape the present miseries towards a happier future. Many beliefs once confidently held have crumbled with the coming of the modern age; others are falling now before the fury of the storm. To cling to these beliefs means trusting in the ineffectual. We cannot build the future with a worn out creed.

Nor can we build it out of emptiness and unbelief. We need a faith that truly reckons with an age of transformation; that knows the inner meaning of events; that sees the coming victory of humanity within the present tragedy and loss.

This faith has long been growing and has now begun to claim the future. It was held by Jefferson and Lincoln as the hope of universal liberation and in rejection of the creeds. It was proclaimed by Channing as the essence of original Christianity; by Emerson as pure religion; by Parker as the faith that builds the brotherhood of man. Walt Whitman prophesied it as the true religion of tomorrow. It has been voiced by prophets, sung by poets, declared by pioneers of liberty through many centuries, in every land. It is the faith behind freedom.

FROM THE BEGINNING, man has struggled to be free. Through countless generations, he has fought to liberate himself from limitations in the natural world about him, from fear and ignorance, and from the tyrannies imposed by other men. In this he has fulfilled a natural law of life, which, as it climbs to higher levels in the scale, requires the growth of freedom. Once reached, this higher level cannot be debased without disaster. Retreat from freedom, therefore, or its degradation, is defiance of a natural law, which, now as always, must invite calamity. Man, to be equal to his future, must be free.

But freedom cannot live unless it grows. The time has come to make it universal. When, in the 18th century, it was declared that all men are created equal and endowed with freedom as a natural right, not only was a new and different kind of nation dedicated to a universal principle, but the declaration heralded the freedom of the world. This is the deeper issue of the present war. The age-long struggle has achieved its universal scope. The earth is now a neighborhood. Mankind is bound together in a common fate. Freedom must in the end be indivisible. And therefore,

WE BELIEVE THE WORLD MUST COME TO BE A SINGLE, FREE COMMUNITY.

Until it does, wars will increase and nations, strong or weak, must face the ever-present danger of destruction. The world is now too small for anything but brotherhood; and brotherhood, before it can be universal, must be based upon the principle that all men are created free.

THIS IS THE HOPE OF FREEDOM, BUT BEHIND IT THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A FREEDOM- BUILDING FAITH.

Freedom cannot be maintained by faiths that foster ignorance and superstition, and thus become the natural tools of tyranny. Whatever fears the naked light of truth will seek its shelter in oppression. Only beliefs which in themselves are liberating are equal to the purpose of a liberated world. Hence,

WE BELIEVE THAT FREEDOM GROWS FROM FREE RELIGION, THAT ONLY A FREE RELIGION CAN BE UNIVERSAL, AND THAT EVERY OTHER FREEDOM IS BASED ON FREEDOM OF THE MIND.

A true religion knows no barriers of nation, race or class, and no exclusions through a creed. Its unity is in its purpose; its covenant is brotherhood. As no man can be good enough to be the master of another, so no man can be wise enough to bind another in belief. Hence, we reject all orthodoxies and proclaim the Free and Universal Church.

And in the freedom of this Church, knowing that all beliefs derive their substance from the meaning that we find in life and from the faith we have in man, we make the following affirmations, offering them to all to whom they are persuasive and as the basis of a faith for freedom-loving men:

WE BELIEVE that religion and life are one and that the spiritual world is part of the natural world. We take our stand with modern knowledge, knowing it as fallible but knowing also that it supersedes a less enlightened past. We choose, in freedom, from the ancient world, those teachings which persuade us, and revere the prophets of all ages and of every land. We look upon the precepts Jesus taught as being original Christianity. But we remember that, no matter what our heritage, it is the living truth that makes us free.

WE BELIEVE that man is both a child of earth and of the wider mystery of the universe. We face the facts of contradiction, ignorance and tragedy without evasion or pretence—and equally without dismay. For man is not imprisoned by the limits of his understanding. He has the power of moral growth, of loving and creating beauty; and, through spiritual awareness, great intensities of insight and imagination. He is, no matter what the mystery of his being, a living soul.

The meaning of his life is not defined by what degrades it but by what it moves towards. The truth that man resists takes deeper root within his conscience, and though he crucifies his benefactors, memory never lets a prophet die.

We repudiate the fear that brings retreat to many modern minds: that human progress has resulted in insoluble dilemmas and incurred the wrath of God through being due to human pride. No moral benefit ensues from such distortions of the facts of human evil, none of which are curable by superstitious fear. The evil man creates is grim and tragic; but it must be conquered by humility combined with moral courage—not abasement—and through the free religion that can build a better world. Modern man is not condemned by modern progress but by the insufficient spread of it. It is ancient ignorance and ancient fear, together with all other ancient evil, that have held him back. It is wider freedom, leading to greater brotherhood, that will bring him on his way.

WE BELIEVE experience reveals a Mystery more sublime and wonderful than can be measured by our human life, and which exceeds our understanding. In this we see the source of mind and spirit. We recognize that each of us must name this Mystery as his thought directs, but that the language of the heart has called it God. We cannot hope to comprehend the Uttermost; we know it as ‘a power in the life,’ upon which we may rely. But we believe that God in human history must think through human thoughts and work through human hands. No thought of God is true that undermines the need for courage or lessens our responsibility.

Hence, man is challenged by the highest measure of his spiritual awareness as well as by conditions in the world about him to achieve a life of freedom through his power to think and choose and share the guidance of his destiny. This is the soul’s emancipation, the source of sacredness in human rights, the final and religious ground of freedom.

BELIEVING IN THIS FAITH and in its power to shape the future, we desire that from the present struggle of the nations shall come A MORAL VICTORY FOR ALL MANKIND.

Our purpose is to build a World Community of free and equal men, dedicated to equality of human rights and obligations, and governed by the laws that free men make.

To such a World Community we look for lasting peace, knowing that peace is built on unity, and unity on freedom. No world, half-slave, half-free, can bring us lasting peace. We seek complete and universal freedom.

Our purpose is a world of liberation not only from war but from the tyranny of hate and greed, and from the barriers of race and class. And we look for freedom through a better regulation of the world’s prosperity: freedom from poverty, freedom from want. We seek a world more equal in its opportunity, free from hereditary privilege and from entrenchments that defy the common good. We look for equal Justice, equal economic treatment, equal education, equal privileges, irrespective of color or creed. There is no room for prejudice or persecution in a free man’s world;… And we seek these things here in America, having in mind especially our fellow-citizens the Jews and Negroes, that we may be worthy of our place among the nations and of the coming freedom of the world.

We earnestly desire an end to nationalism, that love of country may be freed from selfish interest. Above the State must be the family of nations, and beyond all other love, the love of all mankind.

Finally, we look for growing freedom through cooperation, freedom in the service of the World Community, freedom through the Brotherhood of Man.

But we realize that when we have said these things, we have not done them.

We propose to do them, both as citizens of a free country whose freedom is their birthright, and as disciples of a free religion to whom it is a sacred trust.

Mankind is buying with its blood and agony, the chance to build a better world. Let us begin to build it. The time of opportunity is now.

A. POWELL DAVIES (June 5, 1902-September 26, 1957), a Unitarian minister, was a renowned orator and a prominent social activist for civil liberties, government accountability, civilian control of atomic energy, family planning, and desegregation. As a denominational leader, he helped push for the formulation of a more visionary and explicit statement of Unitarian faith that contributed to congregational extension.

He was born of Welsh Methodist parents in Birkenhead, England (a suburb of Liverpool) and served as a Methodist minister in England and Maine before receiving fellowship with the American Unitarian Association (AUA) in 1933, after which he was settled at the Community Church of Summit, New Jersey.

Davies was a leader of the reform movement, Unitarian Advance. As such he chaired the Program Committee in charge of developing the agenda for the 1943 AUA Annual Meetings. This committee proposed the creation of a wartime statement to be called “The Faith Behind Freedom.” He served All Souls Church, Unitarian, in Washington, DC, from 1944 until his death in 1957.

Dedicated to his work, Davies ignored his physicians’ advice to restrict his movements after he was operated on in 1953 for thrombophlebitis in his leg. He continued his routine schedule as much as discomfort and pain would permit. On September 26, 1957 a blood clot traveled to his lung where it caused fatal hemorrhaging. A memorial service was held for Davies two days later at All Souls. Three sitting Supreme Court Justices—Hugo Black, Harold Burton, and William O. Douglas—honored him by attending the service.

——Adapted from the Unitarian Universalist Historical Society (UUHS) website:
Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography
(Full article by Manish Mishra.)