Spiritual Preparation, Workshop 9: William F. Schulz, in the What Moves Us Program
Read Handout 1, Biography of William F. Schulz, and Leader Resource 1, What Torture's Taught Me.
Read one or more of these essays in Finding Time and Other Delicacies, William F. Schulz (Boston: Skinner House, 1992).
- What the Heck is "Spirituality" Anyway?
- Liberal Religion in the Twenty-first Century
- Theologies from a Crystal Ball
- Theology According to Newsweek
- Unitarian Universalism in a New Key
- We Are Unitarian Universalists
- Why Go to Church If You Don't Like Coffee
- The Unitarian Universalist Perspective on Ministry
- On Trying to Be a Non-Anxious Presence
Read Handout 2, The Theology of William F. Schulz. Use some or all of the following exercises and questions to help you reflect on Schulz' Unitarian Universalism in a New Key and how his theological perspective relates to his own personal experiences as a world renowned social justice leader and Unitarian Universalist minister. These questions and exercises parallel the five sections, or topics, presented in Handout 2. You may wish to write your responses in your theology journal:
I. Schulz's Assessment of Human Nature
- Schulz begins with personal experience. He believes that the power of our own Unitarian Universalist faith and congregational worship life can help us stay the course through our distressful emotions and anxious feelings that will lead us, as he puts it, "inexorably to our hearts." (Schulz, Finding Time) Have you had an experience when your Unitarian Universalist faith and congregational worship life helped you stay the course through your own distressful emotions and anxious feelings, until you found heartfelt feelings of emotional renewal or peace? If not, can you imagine a way your Unitarian Universalist faith and congregational worship life might do this for you?
- Schulz calls such experiences the "newborn intimations of possibility, faith, grace, and God." What words might you use to describe the possible uplifting experiences of your faith and your congregational life?
- Schulz says that assertions of the inherent worth and dignity of persons are "designed to cover up the fact that we all are sinners and that we are not always certain which sins (and hence which sinners) are worse than others." What is your definition of sin? What do you think Schulz means by sin? Using your definition of sin, do you agree that we are all sinners?
- Do you believe that every person has inherent worth and dignity? Why?
- What weight do you give to your Unitarian Universalist worship services as the transmitter of your Unitarian Universalist values? Do you believe that your Unitarian Universalist community's worship life plays an important role in your religious life?
II. Unitarian "Universalist" Values
- What is your response to the observations Schulz makes about Universalism?
- How do you think the principles and other values from our Universalist and Unitarian heritages might function to not only put us in touch with our best selves, but also keep our "basest impulses," as Schulz puts it, constrained for the greater good? Do or could these values help you understand, adjudicate, and make peace with the way in which you can fall away from your own moral values?
III. Religion Is a Discipline
- What do you think Schulz means by the terms "religion" and "discipline"? Using his definitions, do you view your own Unitarian Universalist faith as a religious practice? A discipline? If so, why? If not, why not?
- What do you do to experience spirituality?
IV. Schulz's Definitions of "Grace," "the Holy," and "the Spirit"
- Paraphrase Schulz's definitions of the three terms "grace," "the Holy," and "the Spirit" in your own words. Assess, amend and critique Schulz's definitions. Now define these three terms from your own perspective and explain by means of your definitions and commentary why you would or would not choose to use these three terms when explaining your own Unitarian Universalist religious experiences.
- Schulz's list of our sources for religious authority that complements the authority of the individual includes tradition, community, reason, nature, and the Holy. Do you believe that any or all of these religious sources of authority complement the religious authority of your own personal religious experiences? If so, how? If not, why not? What, if any, religious sources not listed by Schulz would you add to his list?
V. The Source of Our Ethical Injunctions
- Schulz says we are a creedless faith because we have a theory about Creation as too grand and complex and mysterious to be captured by a single creed or metaphor. Contradicting the popular notion thatn 'Unitarian Universalists can believe anything,' Schulz has pointed out that, if we affirm the logic of creedlessness, we automatically must be affirming certain ontological assumptions about the nature of Creation (e.g., its grandeur and complexity; the absence or at least inaccessibility of an All-Knowing God, etc.) and about how to live in that Creation (e.g., with a certain humility and generosity of spirit toward others and their struggles to make sense of it All). And so, Schulz argues, we rely on the world's great religious traditions, the sciences, the secular arts, and more to express the complex majesty of creation. Now assess whether you believe his claims are personally true for you. That is, does your own noncreedal faith as a Unitarian Universalist begin with a theory about Creation? If not, where does your allegiance to our noncreedal faith tradition begin? In other words, in what experience in the world is it ontologically rooted as a personal experience of yours?
- Have you had an experience that would fit Schulz's definition of grace? If so, did that experience motivate you to any particular action?
- What does it mean for you to be in right relationship with another person? What values help you to be in right relationship with another person?
- What is the relationship between social justice work and your values and vision as a Unitarian Universalist?
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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