What Blackpool Unitarian Church Stands For The issue that I am going to discuss with you this morning is not an easy one and to be frank, I may not end up with an answer that we can all be comfortable with. I know, however, that you will listen to what I say and will arrive, in due time, at an opinion which is ineffably all your own. I realise that whatever you decide for yourself may or may not relate to what I present to you. This is because this is a Unitarian church and a fundamental expectation of the Unitarian movement is that you have the right to make up your own mind about what is presented to you. Perhaps this isn't a right but an expectation to make up your own mind. Perhaps it is not even this but more of a demand, that you use your faculties to make your sense in a way that is meaningful to you because this is the demand that is laid upon any and every single Unitarian and Unitarian church. This leaves us with a difficulty. If each person here today has a different understanding of today's sermon then how can this can be reflected in a single global understanding that would reflect the group or church's view or understanding? Is this single global understanding actually possible or is it just a nice protective smokescreen that keeps us all in our individual collective comfort zones? Is this just a nice pipe dream or a comforting fairy tale that will last the morning or perhaps the day and then is forgotten as the activities and pressures of the week take over again? Is it? The Rev. Dr. Ray Walder in our second reading of part of a sermon, given by him probably in 1999 or the year 2000, indicated that it was possible to achieve what he saw as a 'cohesive state' or a cohesive system in which was exhibited a cohesive tension between, perhaps, a disparate range of individual views within a cohesive whole and a common view. My understanding is that Ray saw the glue for this systemic tension as being love, not the 'lovey dovey' and passing love but rather the love that binds people together in stable long term relationships as it also binds together our universe and reality. This is not the little love but the big love! Another way of expressing this, in our context this morning, would be with such words as this community being bound together with the sense and the reality of a supporting fellowship. So, we accept that love is the message and reality of this church and all its activities. This morning I intend to see if I can't tease out the reality of what this church stands for, what it promotes and expects from this congregation so that we can perhaps see as individuals what the totality of this church actually is, what it believes and what it stands for. So what belief is there that is common to all or most of this congregation? When you think of this question and you think about what you have heard people talk about when you meet them, it is only then that it slowly dawns upon you that perhaps there isn't much at all that is held in common. The existence and reality of the 'holy trinity' is held in common as a negative belief. It is commonly held that the trinity, as described in both mainstream Church of England, the Catholic, Nonconformist and evangelical Christianity, is held not to be true or acceptable. In general Unitarians do not see Jesus as being divine. But you know I am not keen on having a negative belief. I want to point to what we actually believe and not what we don't believe. So what is there that we actually accept or believe? It is my contention that all, or most, of us believe in a 'divine principle'. Most would call this God or the 'All That Is'. For some it is because they see their world as being finely crafted and in careful balance and they can't see how that could come purely by chance. Others would see in the 'natural world' great beauty and design. Some wouldn't use a word for this at all for it is just a feeling or 'an awareness' that there is actually something and that this something seems to be what other people call God. It certainly isn't seen as a white man with a beard sitting on a cloud dispensing justice. It certainly is beyond male and femaleness or any other duality that we can think of. It is so immense that its immensity is beyond description as it encompasses all distance, time and eternity itself. So what is being said is that there is a 'divine principle' and this is largely accepted as being totally beyond description yet in some odd way the 'divine principle' is, or encompasses everything. So, we believe in the reality of a 'divine principle' often referred to as God. So how is all this about the 'divine principle' known? Is it taught and fed to us along with our milk since we were babies? Well perhaps, and if there wasn't more to this, then that would or could be a valid statement. However, a fairly common thought concerning people within this church and congregation is that some aspect of the 'divine principle' has actually been experienced as part of one or more 'spiritual experiences'. I certainly have and I have heard many others talking about their own spiritual experiences during which, in some way, the everyday reality was transcended. Do I hear "What a load of rubbish" being shouted from the back row? No I don't. Such 'spiritual experiences' can involve an expanded sense of reality with the accompanying expanded understanding. It may be about receiving directly, useful guidance that involves hearing a voice or even several voices sometimes congratulating us or giving comfort at a time of great need. For some it is about the power of prayer that gives actual practical results in our day to day lives. Sometimes it is about healing that seems to come through us rather than is a part of us. Sometimes it is less specific than that and involves us with a sense of 'knowing' about something important or the answer to something that we have been struggling with. The list goes on and on and on. Many of them different but leaving the receiver with the certainty that this is or was the 'divine principle' getting involved in their lives. Yes I know that others would scoff and be dismissive and talk about mental aberrations. Perhaps on occasion they are right.... perhaps? But these experiences are beyond 'accepted' reason. Spiritual experiences and the 'divine principle' experience is beyond reason. Therefore it isn't reasonable. And this is because the 'divine principle' cannot be comprehended in totality. It is beyond all that and so any experience of it is also going to be beyond all that and all you get is an unconnected tiny sliver of understanding which is totally meaningful to the receiver but is easily scoffed at by those who haven't had, haven't recognised or even rejected their own spiritual experience because there is one major difficulty with all this 'funny' stuff. This difficulty is that all experience has to be channelled through our brain before we can begin to recognise or understand the experience. And herein lies the problem. It is said that our sensory system takes in something like 400 billion bits of information every second and our brain only uses about 2000 bits a second of this to create what becomes our perception of our world. And if that is not enough the brain only makes sense based upon what it already knows, that is, on the basis of what it has already experienced. That means that if someone sees an angel during an experience, it may not really be an angel that their senses are really looking at, but the brain makes the sense based on the learned experience that angels might be real - and they might be! To my mind this does not reduce or decry the value of the spiritual experience but I hold on one side the thought that the real experience might be stranger and more interesting still. But what is important is the actual message or the sense made of the experience, that is, what we have understood or learned from it. That is what is important. So this congregation, in general, and often based on direct personal experience, seems to accept that spiritual experiences are real and they teach us something. In fact they are seen as important within the context of personal spiritual growth. Further to this, such experiences, because they have been experienced, should therefore, be incorporated into our personal understanding of reality as a whole and that this situation should also be reflected within our religious understanding and/or belief. The largely inner experience of the spiritual experience should not be excluded because other people think that they are a bit odd or because it is not their experience. So, we recognise the importance of personal spiritual experience. Why is personal spiritual experience important? This is more difficult than recognising the actual existence of the spiritual experience. But it seems to me that although such experiences teach us something for our benefit, there is a general feeling amongst those who have such experiences that the frequency, depth and length of such experiences can be increased by taking part in certain practices such as prayer, contemplation, meditation, healing, helping others etc. If that is true then why would we want to do this? Does it lead somewhere or are we just playing at getting more of a vicarious kick out of such experiences? Well, yes, we do get something out of such experiences. We get what some call a change or raising of consciousness, fleeting though that may be. It makes us feel good. It opens us up somehow. It sometimes feels as if we are somehow and in some way closer to the divine and that we are wrapped sometimes in a comforting, warm and loving blanket. Because of this, people try to repeat and get more access to the spiritual experience as a means to becoming closer to the 'divine principal' or God if you wish. This is about trying to establish an individual 'God contact' because such people accept the reality of the personal God. There is a general acceptance the 'divine principal' or God can be experienced at an individual level and that does respond to personal need. So, we recognise the reality of the personal 'divine experience' and the possibility of a direct, ongoing relationship with the Divine. There I go again. I keep using that word experience don't I but experience is important and that the experience and understanding are of central importance in this process. That is the bottom line isn't it? We should be making a sense of what we experience. It is not enough just to experience, we should test the experience with the application of reason. Any experience, whether it is inner or outer, needs to be understood. The application of intellect is necessary in the 'making of sense'. Of course traditionally in Unitarianism, the making of sense has been seen to be paramount. We have the right to challenge anything that anyone says is sensible or that they say should be accepted or believed. We all have the freedom not to accept what we are told is true and to openly challenge such statements. And we also have the individual right to use the test of reason on both what we are told and what we experience as well. Traditionally the 'catch words' are Freedom, Reason and Responsibility. As this is a Unitarian church we have the right not to accept what another says and the expectation is that we will apply reason to all things. Another way of saying this is that we must apply reason to the mirror of experience, the inner or the outer experience of ours or another's. There is a demand made of us to test and create a continuous unfolding and development of understanding and belief. So, we expect to create a better individual understanding by applying reason to the mirror of our experience. But an important part of our experience is based on what we hear and read, both in church and in our daily lives and what we learn about what others say now or have said or believed in the past. This is an important aspect of the church - to challenge us, to challenge what we think we believe and what we think we understand. Why, because it is through such a challenge that our own understanding grows. So, we expect to have our understanding challenged so that our own individual understanding can grow. So where do the ideas come from that are put to us to challenge us? Well historically, Unitarianism has arisen out of the Christian church and because of this the teachings of Jesus are seen as being important though this does not mean that other teachers are ignored. So, we see Jesus as an important teacher from who we can learn. We also recognise that others across the world and millennia have had important insights which can teach us. There are many, many things that I could say to add to my list of what I think that this congregation in Blackpool thinks is important. Let us at this point just recap these again 1. We accept that love is the message and reality of this church and all its activities. 2. We believe in the reality of a 'divine principle' often referred to as God. 3. We recognise the importance of personal spiritual experience. 4. We recognise the reality of the personal 'divine experience' and the possibility of a direct, ongoing relationship with the Divine. 5. We expect to create a better individual understanding by applying reason to the mirror of our experience. 6. We expect to have our understanding challenged so that our own individual understanding can grow. 7. We see Jesus as an important teacher from who we can learn. And finally - 8. We also recognise that others across the world and millennia have had important insights which can teach us. I hope that you find that this list is a true reflection of what this church stands for. Amen Joe Potter  26/08/2007