Centering (5 minutes)

This is a time to make the transition from the busy world to the group experience. A member of the group may read these words from Unitarian Universalist minister Walter Royal Jones, Jr.:

Mindful of truth ever exceeding our knowledge
And community ever exceeding our practice,
Reverently we covenant together,
Beginning with ourselves as we are,
To share the strength of integrity
And the heritage of the spirit
In the unending quest for wisdom and love.

Check-in (10 to 25 minutes)

Each person in the group has the opportunity to share something about his or her life. What significant events have taken place recently in your life? Have you accomplished something meaningful to you? Have you experienced any losses or setbacks? Have you had any insights or new ideas?

Group Discussion (45 to 70 minutes)

Our spiritual theme for this month is Right and Wrong. What does our Unitarian Universalist tradition say to us about right and wrong? How do we know what is right and wrong? How can we best instill in our children a sense of right and wrong? How do we account for the discrepancy between knowing and doing with regard to right and wrong? Can we grow in our capacity for doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong? Are some wrong actions unavoidable?

For group discussion, please consider the questions associated with one or more of the following numbered sections. You need not address all of these sections, and you need not address them in this order.

1. Ebenezer Scrooge is the real hero in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens because it is Scrooge who undergoes the transformation brought about by the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Be. It is a difficult transformation, and one that Scrooge questions, for he must look at himself in a new light, and he does not always like what he sees. At one point in the story, when he is with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Be, Scrooge observes the reaction of several individuals to the death of someone who was apparently not very well regarded. And he is profoundly shaken by the dawning realization that the unloved and unmourned person who has recently expired is none other than himself. “Spirit, hear me!” pleads Scrooge. “I am not the man I was! … Why show me this if I am past all hope! … Assure me that I may yet change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!”

Can people change? Can people grow? Or, because of inborn characteristics, are we destined to behave in unalterable ways? Or, because of our cultural situation, are we destined to behave in unalterable ways?

2. In his Letter to the Romans, Paul wrote: “I do not understand my own actions… . I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”

At times are you perplexed by your own behavior? At times are you frustrated by your own behavior? Is knowing right from wrong enough to ensure good behavior?

3. In 1913, even before the terrible tragedies of World War I, Unitarian minister and Harvard Divinity School professor William Wallace Fenn wrote: “Turning now to the criticism of Liberalism from within, to which its own creative principle gives rise, we must seriously question whether it can bear the weight of the tragedies of human existence. Does not its amiable faith in inherent goodness appear ghastly mockery when confronted by the facts of life? Believing in the immanent God, it must seriously consider what sort of God it is that nature reveals. We cannot be so enamoured of the loveliness of nature as to be blind to its terrible aspects. And what of human sin? Here more than anywhere else the weakness of Modern Liberalism shows itself. It may be conceded that traditional theology made too much of sin, but surely that was better than to make light of it. To a serious thinker, Modern Liberalism often seems too jocund for life, as it actually is… . We would not have Modern Liberalism return to a belief in the devil – that is too easy a solution to the problem – but it must deal more justly with the crushing tragedies of life, with evil and sin, if it is to command the respect of candid and thoughtful men [and women]. The saviors of the world have always been and always will be men [and women] of sorrow and acquainted with grief.”

In your experience, how well does contemporary Unitarian Universalism address “the crushing tragedies of life”? How well does contemporary Unitarian Universalism address “evil and sin”? Are Unitarian Universalists “men [and women] of sorrow and acquainted with grief”?

4. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”

Would you agree?

5. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote, “There have always been those who argued that the end justifies the means, that the means really aren’t important… . So, if you’re seeking to develop a just society, they say, the important thing is to get there; … any means will do – they may be violent, they may be untruthful; … they may even be unjust means to a just end… . But we will never have peace in the world until people everywhere recognize that ends are not cut off from means, because the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process, and ultimately you can’t reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree… . We must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means… . In the final analysis, means and ends must cohere because the end is pre-existent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.”

Under what circumstances would it be permissible to use evil means to achieve good ends? Under what circumstances would it be permissible to use destructive means to achieve constructive ends?

6. Over thousands of years, moral philosophy has produced just two basic types of ethical systems. On the one hand are teleological systems, which state that the morality of an action depends on how much goodness it produces. In his book Ethics, William Frankena writes that for teleological theories: “An act ought to be done if and only if it or the rule under which it falls produces, will probably produce, or is intended to produce a greater balance of good over evil than any available alternative.” On the other hand are deontological systems, which state that the morality of an action depends, at least in part, on considerations other than its consequences. Examples of such considerations are “the fact that it keeps a promise, is just, or is commanded by God or the state,” according to Frankena.

Would you classify your personal ethical standards as teleological or deontological? That is, do you guide your behavior primarily by its consequences? Or do you guide your behavior primarily by how well it conforms with standards other than its consequences?

7. Theologian Starhawk wrote: “Integrity means that we cannot propose or accept a solution for someone else that we are unwilling to undergo ourselves.”

Is this a helpful rule? Would you agree with this statement? Would you classify this as a teleological or deontological statement?

8. In 1937, in his Second Inaugural Address, Franklin D. Roosevelt said: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

Is this a helpful rule? Would you agree with this statement? Would you classify this as a teleological or deontological statement?

Conclusion (5 to 10 minutes)

What will you take away from this discussion? What would have made this time together more meaningful or satisfying to you? What did you enjoy? A group member may share these words from Karen Armstrong:

When we feel cast down by our pain and by the misery that we see all around us, we should experience our dejection as a call to further effort. The mythos of compassion tells us what to do. Instead of becoming depressed by our repeated failures, we should remember that constant practice does indeed make perfect and that if we persevere, we too can become a force for good in the world.