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Roots and Wings When Martin Luther opened the door to reform of the Catholic Church in 1517, the teen-aged John Calvin was swept away in the enthusiasm that Luther’s ideas generated. Luther had not intended to start a new religion. But the challenge to existing religious authority could not be contained. Thirty years later, all over Europe , there were Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, and a myriad of others offering new religious ideas. The common theme of this outburst of religious thought was intolerance. Ironic, isn’t it? The first steps of religious reform included persecution of those who disagreed with the reformers. Miguel Servetus, who engaged John Calvin in religious argument, was arrested by Swiss authorities and burned at the stake in Geneva in 1553. But acts of violence intended to suppress free thought and free speech often have the opposite effect. Many contemporaries considered the execution of Servetus to be extreme and unnecessary. It was Sebastian Castellio, a Calvinist, who publicly challenged the harsh sentence and Calvin’s vindictive refusal to pardon his old adversary. Castellio was 38 when Servetus died. He protested forcefully, in pamphlets that immediately were read widely across Europe , that matters of conscience are not amenable to force. Tolerance of religious difference is essential, he said, because people are saved only by their own faith, not by the insistence of others. Thinking hard about how people come to an understanding of God’s will, Castellio concluded that there are only two sources of knowledge: experience and revelation, arbitrated by reason. Out of the fire that consumed Miguel Servetus rose a new idea like a phoenix from the flames: reason and direct experience of the holy are available to every person, and for every person the truth comes in different ways and at different times. This new idea took wings. It is the foundation of our Unitarian Universalist practice today; it underlies the separation of church and state that grounds our constitutional government. It also is the basis of the path each of us takes toward spiritual wholeness. Think of your own religious journey. Those of you who rebelled against the religious authority of your childhood: how did that happen? Reason? Experience? And those of you who came more gently to your religious and spiritual views: how did that happen? Each of us follows our own path to an understanding of the mystery of life. Each of us “makes meaning” of the people and events in our lives. Our theological ideas are grounded in our experiences. Our roots run deep to our earliest moments of life: love and caring, or fear and injury, for better or worse, affect our characters and our faith. Beyond our individual experiences, the stories we are told, the memories that are cherished and repeated with joy by those who love us; the memories of trouble and hurt that are repeatedly remembered and told with sorrow and hurt; these become part of us, they shape who we are, they are the roots from which we grow. We have reason to be thankful for the roots that anchor us deep in fertile soil, that nourish us as we continue to grow and develop. Wherever we may be on our spiritual journey, we can trace with gratitude the ties of love and friendship that have helped us along our way. We can also acknowledge the pain, the hurt that shape us as well. When the 38-year-old Castellio cried out against the persecution of Servetus, he could not know that his ideas would soon influence a Transylvanian King, John Sigismund. Reacting to the suffering of Servetus and others executed for their religious views, Castellio also incurred the wrath of John Calvin and his followers. He was arrested for heresy. He died only 10 years after Servetus; he died in a prison cell awaiting trial. But his words had taken wing, and religious reformers in Transylvania were receptive listeners. That is the way ideas work. They leap over the rules and laws governments erect to keep them out. They bypass official channels. They are published without approval. They are read in secret and discussed in whispers. And little by little people begin to understand; step by step they begin to change. Then, one day, the new idea is so widely embraced that no government can be successful in suppressing it. In Transylvania the man we know as Francis David—in his language and culture, “ Dávid Ferenc”—was a minister of the Reformed Church and a close adviser to King John. Dávid was a clear thinker, open to new ideas. He was the leader of a new way of religious thought that relied on a careful reading of scripture and the use of reason to understand it. He and others became convinced that the doctrine of the “trinity” lacked a foundation in scripture. Their reasoning led to the idea that Jesus might be the son of God but was not himself God—a subtle difference to many, but highly significant at that time and place. An issue in the late 1550s, as Castellio’s words came winging across Europe, was whether Jesus should be “invoked” in prayer—should people pray to Jesus. Muslims “invoke” Jesus—and his mother, Mary; so the idea of invoking Jesus in prayer is not one that relies on a strictly Christian point of view. But as Transylvanian thinkers initially struggled with scriptural interpretation, they followed a relentless logic that if Jesus and God were not the same, then Jesus should not be “invoked.” A great controversy ensued. King John thought the issue might be determined by a gathering of leaders from all the religious groups active in Transylvanian social life: Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Dávid’s group of reform thinkers. After a debate that lasted weeks and reached no clear resolution, King John concluded that he, for one, could not decide what the truth was. It was then that Castellio’s ideas took root in Transylvania. Faith was a gift of God. It might come in different ways to different people. The conscience of the human being was illuminated in ways that are beyond human powers to understand. No person can force another to have “faith,” whatever might be urged under that name. King John, in close consultation with David, concluded that it was important to let all voices be heard, because God might be speaking through them to the conscience of a single person. He urged the national assembly, the Diet of Torda, to adopt the principle of religious toleration. And so, in 1568, Transylvania became the first nation to endorse the idea of freedom of religion. It was not the end of the journey toward religious tolerance by any means, but it was an important first step. The ideas of tolerance, openness, and freedom of conscience that flew about in the 16 th century settled in the hearts of many. Those who embraced the idea of “free faith” lived by their principles. Their persecution and their suffering etched into history the notion that new ideas must be heard; that each of us is on our own spiritual journey; that faith means not a doctrine but an attitude of openness, a loving acceptance of possibility inherent in every person. The traditional Translyvanian house-blessing: “Where there is faith there is love; where there is love there is peace; where there is peace there is blessing; where there is blessing there is God.” In these words is the idea that from faith—from the attitude of openness, of listening—comes peace, and blessing, and finally God. The ineffable is what we discover only when we are sufficiently tolerant, and open, and loving; when we live with peace in our hearts; when our way of being in the world is a blessing to all the lives we touch. These ideas shaped history. They became our roots. When we use our reason to understand, when we consult our hearts, when we open our minds with longing to the influence of the ineffable, those roots anchor us. But they do not bind us. We are able to have new ideas, new “revelations,” because our roots run deep. We think of religious freedom as a human right. This idea could not have found wide acceptance in the 16 th century. At that time, it was a new and for some frightening thought simply to grant that God might speak in different ways to different hearts. If we see farther, it is because we stand on the shoulders of those who came before. We have been given so much. We have these solid and life-giving roots. Our task is to create our own wings: to take off on our own spiritual and intellectual journey, to generate new ideas, to form new connections, to cherish the blessings of peace in our hearts and lives. Where we fly with our wings—what we create today—will become the deep roots of future generations. “Where there is faith there is love; |
