Spiritual Preparation, Workshop 6: Sophia Lyon Fahs, in the What Moves Us Program
Read one or more of the following for background information:
- Handout 1, Introducing Sophia Lyon Fahs
- David Robinson's chapter, "Sophia Lyon Fahs," in The Unitarians and the Universalists (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984), pp.256-57.
- Christopher L. Walton, "Sophia Lyon Fahs: Revolutionary educator," UU World (March/April 2003).
Read Leader Resource 1, Why Teach Religion in an Age of Science? by Sophia L. Fahs. As you read this short monograph, keep in mind that Fahs' basic answer to her title question can be summarized as follows:
Emotional needs and impulses create and sustain scientific explorations and moral concerns. Religious educators pay attention to such needs and impulses in order to help transform them into moral and religious values that create and sustain ethical behavior. The task of religious educators is to show children (and adults) how to kindle and sustain their own basic emotions for the sake of ethical action and universal empathy toward others. While physical and social science perspectives and insights must inform theological and moral thinking, the search for meaning is not a scientific task; it is a religious task.
Here are some readings and questions to help you reflect upon Fahs' theological rationale and strategy as elucidated in Leader Resource 1. You may wish to write your reflections in your theology journal:
Fahs' definition of "religion in general" and her use of the term "God."
Fahs reminds her readers that she is not asking the question: "Why teach the Christian religion in an age of science?" She uses the "general term 'religion,'" she explains, "because from our point of view the educational process in an age of science should no longer be regarded as the transmission of one faith in order to seek commitment to it." She thus intends to study "religion" shorn of doctrine and tradition, putting aside the different doctrines that distinguish various religious traditions from one another, in order to discover what unites them today as religion in a scientific age: (1) basic human emotions (e.g. wonderment) and (2) human thoughts (e.g. the use of a religious term such as God that gets linked to and expressive of specific human emotional experiences).
In her monograph, Fahs calls for the rejection of traditional biblically based doctrinal notions because, according to Fahs, they are often scientifically counterfactual. For Fahs, however, the ongoing use of the term God is not scientifically counterfactual because the reference for this term is flexible. (See Leader Resource 2.) According to Fahs, the word God includes two concepts: "A Creative Power entering from outside, and a Creative Power that has always been inherent and within." She concludes, "Some word or group of words is needed to express this Creativity." The term God, for Fahs as a humanist, thus refers to the personal experience of an external and internal Creative Power.
For reflection: What does the term God personally mean to you? To what does the term refer for you? Do you find it a useful term when reflecting on your own experiences of creativity and creative engagement? Based on your own understanding of the term God, compare and contrast it with Fahs' understanding of the term.
Basic human needs, impulses, and emotions.
Fahs distinguishes basic human needs and impulses from the religious emotions she believes emerge from them. Fahs characterizes each of five basic human needs and impulses that religion addresses at a basic emotional level: (1) an instinctive urge to keep alive and avoid death; (2) wonderment; (3) love and the dread of being alone; (4) the emotional need to resolve conflicting emotional impulses in an ordered way; and (5) the basic emotional need for idealized selves as heroes and/or divinity.
For reflection: Choose one of these five emotional needs (or a feeling within you that seems akin to it). Next, think of an emotional experience you would describe as a religious experience (e.g., awe, wonder, reverence). Can you think of an emotional experience that you would not describe as a religious experience? What is the difference? Compare and contrast the two personal emotional experiences. Why would you (or would you not) call one of the two emotional experiences a religious experience and, more precisely, a Unitarian Universalist religious experience?
Fahs makes a distinction between the two sets of experiences, believing that the role of the religious educator is to help a person think about and experience the same "general" emotion (e.g., wonderment) as a "religious" emotion. According to Fahs, the role of the religious educator is to create the opportunity for a religious experience by helping students reflect on an emotional experience in a religious way. Based on your own personal analysis of your two recollected experiences, does Fahs' distinction personally make sense to you? On what basis do you decide whether an emotional experience is a religious (or spiritual) emotional experience? Based on your personal experiences and insights from this exercise, do you believe the basic distinction Fahs' makes between 'ordinary' emotions and 'religious' emotions is sound?
We are "impelled" to want to be religious.
For reflection: According to Fahs, human beings were originally impelled "to be religious because [they] needed something [they] had not yet found." Have you felt impelled to want to be religious? If you have not felt so impelled, reflect upon the circumstances that led you to become a Unitarian Universalist. Then find the emotions linked to these circumstances (e.g., feeling emotionally confused, feeling at risk, feeling alone, feeling free). Fahs believes that this emotional component of your experience led to the transformation of your feelings into religious sentiments. Do you agree?
Are you a Unitarian Universalist because you needed something and found it in this faith tradition? Are you seeking something you have not yet found? Do Fahs' claims here make personal sense to you based on your own experience?
Religion is at risk of losing its relevance.
Fahs argues, "[Yet] if religion is to survive in a day of advancing scientific discoveries, it must find a way to be on the one hand intellectually sound, and on the other hand emotionally satisfying." She calls for a reformation of traditional religious beliefs about human nature, the universe, and the natural world. According to Fahs, there is thrill, awe and mystery when our bodies and the rest of the universe are viewed at a subatomic level. The God of humanity, the God of gravitation, the God of hydrogen atoms, and the God of higher sentient beings is one and the same God, Fahs argues. The only way, Fahs concludes, to avoid the personal tragedy of persons who now regard themselves as irreligious, "simply because they can no longer give assent to the religion they inherited" is to discard antiquated religious doctrines, ideas, and dogma.
For reflection: Do you agree with Fahs' assessment of mystical experience and her attempt to broaden the definition of mystical experience beyond the strictures of traditional religious doctrine? Have you ever had an experience you would call "mystical"?
Development of emotional empathy using personal experience.
Fahs believes that if we pay careful attention to a fundamental emotional feeling intently enough, with an open, reflective mind, we will move into a religious emotional state of empathy towards ourselves and towards others. She writes, "The development of moral and spiritual values today involves not so much the courage to fight for the right against the wrong, as the patience to understand the wrong, its causes and its meanings. It involves also learning the arts of negotiation and empathy."
For reflection: Consider an example from your own life in which you used the arts of negotiation and empathy to assess a moral issue. How did you develop this skill? What can help you strengthen it?
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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