The Rev. Marcel P. Duhamel was installed as the 30th settled minister of the Second Congregational Society, Unitarian Universalist Church of Concord, NH, in October, 1999. Marcel had most recently served as minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Binghamton, New York, prior to coming to Concord.
Marcel received his theological degree from Harvard Divinity School in 1989. He did his undergraduate work at Rhode Island College and earned an MA in comparative literature from Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts. He taught high school English and French in southeastern Massachusetts from 1966 through 1986. Raised Roman Catholic, Marcel discovered UUism while looking for a religious home for his children that was different from what he had experienced in his own childhood. Marcel's perspective includes his having embraced Theravada Buddhism some twenty years ago.
On Religion and Spirituality
by Marcel P. Duhamel
Relatively few people have ever even heard of Unitarian Universalists. Our denomination is the result of the merger of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America in the spring of 1961. We owe much to both parent denominations but we have evolved an identity which is now uniquely our own, neither Unitarian nor Universalist. Both parent denominations were on the far left margins of the Protestant Reformation. Many but not all contemporary UU's think of themselves as Protestant.At a minimum, to be Protestant one must consider oneself Christian. Some UU's do. Some do not. I am not infrequently asked the question "are you a Christian?" I do not think this is a "yes" or "no" question. A Quaker and a Greek Orthodox are both Christian, yet they bear little resemblance to one another.The question brings to mind the situation a candidate found himself in while campaigning in the hills of Kentucky. He was asked his views on "whiskey." He knew that he was among folks who were arch-conservative in their social views; they also were fierce in the tradition of distilling various concoctions for both personal use and sale and insistent that "revenuers" had no business interfering with this commerce. The candidate answered thus:
"If by "whiskey" you mean that aid to digestion, that elixir which has served for generations to seal bargains, that fluid which has brought joy and camaraderie to many a hunting trip, that natural resource which can always provide a market for excess grain, that brew which has long served as the gateway to adulthood, that drink which has helped forge lasting friendships, if this is what you mean by "whiskey," I'm all for it.
"On the other hand if by "whiskey" you mean that devil brew which has broken up households, that concoction which has prevented many from being gainfully employed, that poison which as destroyed health, that path to reducing a man to less than an animal that door to violence, I am in staunch opposition to it." (He was elected by a landslide!)
Am I a Christian? If by Christian do you mean I embrace the teachings of compassion and loving kindness preached by Jesus of Nazareth; if you mean that peace and non-violence is always a better alternative than war or violence, that we are divinely called to love all our fellow humans that sharing is better than hoarding, than I am proud to call myself Christian.
On the other hand, if by Christian you are referring to that institution which seems more interested in a religion about Jesus than the religion of Jesus, if you mean those folks who brought humankind a legacy of persecution, if you mean that organization which is quick to condemn others who cannot embrace their superstitions, then I want nothing to do with these folks nor do I want my name associated with them.
As Unitarian Universalists, our aim is to make a free and fearless church; seeking truth wherever it may be found, we are eager for an interpretation of religion in harmony with modern knowledge which satisfies spiritual cravings without doing injustice to intellectual common sense. We hold that religion is one of the primal, persistent native instincts of the human mind, and that one of the best definitions of religion is: "to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God. "We hold that the best unifying force in church life is common service instead of common belief; that we may not believe alike, but can love alike, that a church is not merely a place to get something for oneself, but a place to do something for others.We believe in positive religious convictions, but insist that no church or person has the right or the ability to frame a statement of belief fitted to other minds; that the custom of making a creed the gateway to fellowship is an injustice to thinking minds and at variance with intellectual freedom. We hold that everything has its religious and ethical side; that the distinction between sacred and secular is misleading and untrue; that the whole world is sacred. We believe in the indestructibility of moral and spiritual forces and seek to ally ourselves with them.
And we gather as a church because we affirm that personal religious growth is enriched by participation in an accepting, caring community.
|
