Spiritual Preparation, Workshop 5: Charles Chauncy, in the What Moves Us Program
Read background information about the Great Awakening and about Charles Chauncy. Suggested sources include:
- Summary statement of the Great Awakening in the Answers.com (TM) U.S. History Encyclopedia: Great Awakening or another encyclopedia (Please note that the last name of George Whitefield, one of the major itinerant ministers of the first Great Awakening in the North American English colonies, is pronounced WIT-field.)
- "Charles Chauncy," p. 233 in David Robinson's book The Unitarians and the Universalists (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984).
Read the five excerpts from Charles Chauncy's sermon, A Sermon on the Out-pouring of the Holy Ghost, in Leader Resource 1. As you read, reflect on some of the following questions, looking for connections he makes among emotion, reason, behavior, and what he calls a Christian spiritual state. Keep in mind that Chauncy is writing as a traditional, conservative Christian whose own reasoning begins to challenge his doctrinal beliefs about human beings' utter powerlessness and lack of capacity to facilitate or participate in bringing about their own religious salvation. Chauncy begins to reject the Christian Doctrine of Original Sin, which claims that humans, because of their fallen sinful nature passed down to them from Adam in the Garden of Eden, lack the capacity to call forth and participate in their own spiritual salvation.
You may wish to write your reflections in your theology journal.
First Excerpt Guide Questions
- Chauncy says that experiencing the Holy Ghost means experiencing the way in which a person is being influenced or operated upon. To get a sense of what he means by experiencing something internally, recall a way in which your parents have "influenced" you and in this way had, in effect, an operative ability on your internal life. How might you use this example to help understand and explain what Chauncy means when he says that the Holy Ghost, as an expression of the Divine Parent, internally influences someone?
- Find an example in your own life in which you have felt an internal comfort that you would define as spiritual. What is your definition of spiritual? Does it relate at all to the words "real, living, active infinitely glorious" which Chauncy uses to describe the Holy Spirit?
Second Excerpt Guide Questions
- Chauncy emphasizes the "great diversity" of ways in which the human experience of the Spirit occurs. Have you ever had an experience that you would call "spiritual"? If so, describe the experience in your journal. Then, after you have described the experience, define what you mean by the term "spiritual." In other words, use your experience to help you define what you mean by the term "spiritual experience." Do you believe there is a diversity of ways in which persons can have "spiritual experiences?" Explain.
Third Excerpt Guide Questions
- Chauncy believes that the spirit of your mind has to be transformed by participation in the Divine nature of God. How are we to understand what Chauncy means by "participation?" To answer this question, think about what the word "participation" means to you when you affirm, as a member of a Unitarian Universalist congregation, that you are "part" of the interdependent web of existence. Explain your answer to this question by first using a personal experience of being part of the web of life. Then use your own example to unpack what you might mean by "participation" in the web of life. Would you call this participation spiritual? Explain.
- Is spiritual renewal an experience of regeneration, salvation, and renewal for you with regard to every aspect of your life? Explain.
Fourth Excerpt Guide Questions
- Citing Scripture, Chauncy argues that "if we ask [Luke 11:9], we shall receive; if we seek, we shall find, if we knock, it shall be opened to us." This argument affirms the human capacity to participate in one's own process of spiritual healing by inviting it. Chauncy thus goes against his own orthodox Puritan beliefs that humans do not have any power or capacity to facilitate their own religious salvation. Rather, he argues that it is "unreasonable," "base and ungrateful" to doubt or hesitate to affirm this human capacity. Chauncy thus begins to build a rational argument for human agency in one's own spiritual transformation. How does human agency, the ability to work toward your own spiritual transformation, show up in your life? Explain. What do you do to begin this process: meditate, pray, go to a religious service, sing in the choir, participate in a small group ministry program? Explain.
Fifth Excerpt Guide Questions
- Describe a personal transforming spiritual experience. Compare and contrast it to Chauncy's description of the "Gift of the Holy Ghost." How is your transforming personal experience linked to your identity as a Unitarian Universalist? Or how would you like for it to be so linked?
Before leading this workshop, review Workshop 1, Leader Resource 1, Accessibility Guidelines for Workshop Presenters.
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Last updated on Friday, December 9, 2011.
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