Beyond the Feather Bed: A Haven for the Modern “Somethingist”?
(Click on this link to hear a recorded version of the following piece)
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From the 1500s right up to the 20th century, Unitarian, and indeed Universalist, churches mostly grew by welcoming people who had lost their faith in traditional forms of Christianity. We offered a more logical, rational alternative, and because of this, in the late eighteenth century, Charles Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus, famously joked that “Unitarianism was a feather-bed to catch a falling Christian.”
It was a clever and, at the time, true observation. But today, over 300 years later, we have a problem: almost everyone who was going to fall out of traditional forms of Christianity and land on our feather bed has already done so. That specific well, at least in the UK, has pretty much dried up.
So, we have to ask ourselves two questions: who is falling, or might be falling upon us now? And is the “feather bed” we are offering them actually both what is required, and, in their perception at least, a safe place upon which to land?
Now, many commentators in recent years have been inclined to give “somethingists” a hard time. Hardline atheists view them as cowards who are simply too afraid to accept a universe without a God. On the other hand, more orthodox religious believers think they are simply spiritually lazy. Both sides want them to pick a team and commit to it.
But I think this completely misses the point. “Somethingists” aren’t secretly atheists or closet believers. They are often simply trying to break free from this old, unhelpful tug-of-war.
“Somethingists” have realised that neither traditional religion nor atheism expresses the “something” they are seeking. Yet, despite this, they still have a profound sense that there really is a deeper mystery to existence, but it isn’t one that is found in, or looks like, an old-fashioned church or atheist discussion group.
And here is where “somethingism” gets interesting. While the early Church Fathers — and thinkers like Augustine and Aquinas — understood the divine as the very ground of being (ipsum esse subsistens), today, both believers and atheists tend to treat faith as if they were referring to some kind of physical thing — a definable something, the existence of which you might be able either to prove or disprove. But many “somethingists” aren’t looking for another definable thing to place in, let’s say, the room of their mind. They are, so to speak, looking for the room itself—a welcoming haven that can actually hold them.
They aren’t looking for a concrete “thing”, but neither are they looking for a bleak, empty “nothing/no-thing” either. Rather, it seems they are seeking something like the quiet space between our thoughts, or the negative space in a piece of art that makes the whole picture work. But what it is not, is a scary, nihilistic black hole that destroys meaning; instead it’s more like a creative, pregnant realm of possibility that holds and sustains everything. Importantly, it’s not some kind of void into which we need fear falling because it is the very something that is always-already holding us. Additionally, whereas all concrete things eventually break and dissolve into their constituent parts, this kind of creative, pregnant realm of possibility feels more like the only thing that could possibly be said to truly last.
Now, if this does describe the kind of “somethingist” who might walk through our doors today, then we need to be honest about what we are offering them.
Once upon a time our historical Unitarian “feather bed” was the perfect solution, but it was always something stuffed full of things such as specific religious doctrines and moral rules, albeit of a liberal kind. But, to many, perhaps most, modern “somethingists”, landing on those kinds of old ideas and rules no longer brings lasting comfort. Experience has shown me that, in the end, it often feels to them like they have been lying on the kind of mattress found in run-down bed and breakfasts where one wakes up in the morning with the worst kind of lower-back pain imaginable.
To truly welcome and support today’s “somethingists” I feel sure we need to ditch the feather bed role altogether, and instead of a feather bed of liberal religious doctrines and moral rules, we need to offer people an open, reflective, creative, critical yet welcoming safe haven that can hold them. We must become a community where nobody is forced to sign up to, or rest upon, any predetermined list of those same dogmas, and which simply encourages people to enter faithfully into a shared free-religious practice: one in which they are given time to rest and meditate, to reflect freely and conversationally on life, the universe and everything, all whilst offering them a way to reverentially express their profound gratitude for the “something” that is the mystery and miracle of the Great Life.
Here, the “somethingist” can become truly faithful, because their faith is no longer being measured by how much they profess to believe or disbelieve, but rather by how deeply they live out this shared reverential practice. Indeed, as I have said at other times, the practice of free-religion
is, at heart, essentially nothing more or less than the practice of bowing in reverence and respect to one
another and the Great Life in which all things live, move and have their being.
So, before departing for my summer leave, I want to suggest that we simply do not need to worry about refurbishing our old, historic Unitarian feather bed in order to catch new people. Instead, we need only start living fully by the free-religious Principles of Living and Ten Advices we have inherited from the Japanese Unitarian, Imaoka Shin’ichirō, and the Czech Unitarian, Norbert Fabián Čapek. Living in this way will naturally keep a door open into a supportive, thoughtful, conversational space that can help all of us sense we truly are always-already held together, returning-to-one (kiitsu 帰一) in a wonderful, unbroken whole.
True, the reality of this wonderful, unbroken whole—this indefinable unifying “something” that has always lain at the heart of our free-religious, Unitarian and Universalist tradition—can sometimes be incredibly difficult to see in our beautiful, but often bruised and hurting world. But despite the difficulty of seeing this, please never forget that proclaiming its reality is, and always has been, our gospel, the good news we wish to proclaim to the world.
And this is why I simply want to leave you for the summer with the familiar words of one of our Universalist forebears, George de Benneville, who said something that remains as true and important today as it was 250 years ago:
“The inner spirit makes us feel that behind every appearance of diversity there is an interdependent unity of all things. Let us, therefore, preach the universal and everlasting gospel of boundless, universal love for the entire human race, without exception, and for each one in particular.”
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