Re: [UUPoly-L] Heresy And Polyamory -- Sermon

["Fehd, Ronald J. (CDC/CCHIS/NCPHI)" <rjf2@CDC.GOV>]

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From: "Ken Haslam" <haslamk@gmail.com>
Subject: [UUPoly-L] Heresy And Polyamory -- Sermon

Sorry for the length of the post.

Here is my sermon on Heresy and Polyamory. Note that I did not spend a
lot of
time on Polyamory and it seemed to be a smaller pill to swallow which
went down
more easily.

IMHO sermons should just touch on polyamory to introduce to concept of
consensual multipartnering as most of the congregants don't know
anything about
it and it really pushes boundaries in the vertical world. The sermon
should then
be followed up in a month or so by a discussion group on Polyamory with
lots of
time for questions and answers. And I strongly recommend asking for some
written
questions for those too embarrassed to ask directly.

You are free to reproduce but please credit it (mistakes and all) to
me. NO IT IS NOT COPYRIGHTED.

Note to those at UUPA and the UU Poly list. If you think this is
worth putting up on the UUPA web site you have my permission to post.
 I will also send it along to the president and secretary of UUPA
directly.

Ken Haslam

It is hard being a heretic

A sermon given to Unitarian Universalists of the Chester River,
Chestertown, MD. By Kenneth R. Haslam Md

20 may 2007

Start by quoting Aldous Huxley's famous aphorism:
"All great truths began as heresy."

and Unitarian Universalists have a long history of seeking the
truth as well being heretics.
Today's sermon is about heresy.

show black tee shirt here purchased at general assembly:

Heretic (in large print)
followed by a background of a couple of dozen famous heretics?.

The Mission of UUCR

The mission of the UUCR is to foster liberal religious ideals through
public
worship, study, service, and fellowship; to provide a public forum to
address
religious, ethical, and moral issues; to support individual freedom of
belief
and caring human relationships; to become an intentionally diverse
community;
and to engage in promoting a just and humane social order.

(ad lib a statement about having mission statements
and not always paying attention to them.)

On October 26, 1553 a brilliant scholar died in the flames. He was truly
a
renaissance man at the time of the renaissance. He died for what he
believed
and his legacy has led to you and me being in this Unitarian
Universalists
fellowship today. the following description of his death is unashamedly
plagiarized and adapted from the book "Out Of The Flames"
by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone published in 2002
and should be required reading for all Unitarian Universalists.

"His shabby appearance belied his status as one of europe"s leading
geographers,
physicians, and theologians and his crime was publishing a book that
redefined
christianity in a more tolerant and inclusive way

At the time of the inquisition torture and cruelty were no strangers to
sixteenth century justice. there was a strict hierarchy of punishment,
from
relatively painless to the gruesomely agonizing depending on the
severity of the
crime. But of all the punishments, the very worst was to be burned
alive. The
condemned was subjected to prolonged, horrible and unendurable pain. and
this
was reserved for the most terrible of all crimes: heresy. Heresy was
especially
loathed because it put not only the soul of the heretic in mortal
jeopardy, but
also those of the otherwise innocent
people infected by their teachings. the heretics teachings had to be
wiped away by burning the man and burning the books. books, btw, were
the
internet of the 16th century. Knowledge and heretical ideas could now be
easily
transported to the next village in the saddlebag of a horse. For this
social
event that was the 16th century equivalent of nascar races the stage was
a stake
and pyre made of fresh, green wood with
newly cut branches with the leaves still attached. They sat this
intelligent but recalcitrant heretic down on a log and chained him to a
post.
His neck was bound with a thick rope and on his head they placed a crown
made of
straw doused in sulphur. Chained to his side was what was thought to be
the last
available copy of his heretical book, De Trinitatis Erroribus or On The
Errors
Of The Trinity -- his exploration of why he thought the holy trinity, a
fabrication of men, was just so much bs. All remaining copies of this
book were
thought, wrongly, to have been destroyed and so all his heretical ideas
were to
be burned along with the man. the fire was lit. Now green wood does not
burn
easily, it burns slowly and unevenly and smokes and sputters. he was
roasted
slowly, agonizingly conscious the entire time with sulfur dripping into
his
eyes for a full half hour. He was heard to say "Poor me who cannot
finish my life in this fire", "Oh God, Oh God" he screamed and his
ashes commingled with those of his heretical book
on the errors of the trinity.

And so died Michael Servetus. His crime was heresy.

show tee shirt purchased as general assembly here
servetus on front,
"Celebrating 450 years of Heresy"
on the back.

Show book
Out Of The Flames
here on heresy

It is damned hard to be a heretic. not a pleasant life. but heretics
seem to
be driven by a spirit that, as you have just heard, sometimes causes
their
deaths. The strength of belief and need to pass on what they believe to
be the
truth can be a powerful goad to defy society and confront those who
consider
themselves experts and also happen to be in control.

Heresy can also get you shunned or banished.


Lets move away from burning green wood pyres and take an intellectual
look at
heresy.

So what is heresy?


In its simplest form heresy means "choice".

There are several definitions but one is: the holding of an unorthodox
opinion
that is in conflict with established or traditional theory. Well, gee,
what is
orthodox. It is defined as "following the established or traditional
rules of
social behavior, a philosophy or a faith".

There are some who say orthodoxy is just "common sense". a for -
instance of
common sense is "the stars and sun move across the sky and so the earth
stands
still and the heavens move". It just makes perfect sense or common sense
?
All you have to do it look.

An orthodox statement often begins with "well, every body knows???.
beware someone who says "everyone knows"?

Orthodoxy is right thinking. It is what we learn from our parents,
and from our teachers, and from father timothy. It is the right way
of doing and thinking about things.

And btw ""we have always done it this way" is another example of
orthodox
thinking.

Heresy cannot exist without orthodoxy. And there is no right thinking
unless
there is wrong thinking. So orthodoxy and heresy must go hand in hand.
Probably the pope and Martin Luther thought of each other as heretics.
And as did John Calvin who burned Michael Servetus

We all grow up being taught the right way to think and the right way to
act.
And for many there is no other way to do it. You just always do the
right
thing and you think the right thoughts. thinking within the box -- it is
nice
and comfortable in that box, and when folks come along and ask you to
become
uncomfortable by thinking out of the box you rebel. You can rebel by
denying,
discrediting, reinterpreting or just plain old forgetting the new and
uncomfortable thoughts.

There is always some heretic out there who thinks differently and thank
god for
heretics, for without heretics I believe there would be no progress in
the
world. They are the irritants that keep people on their toes and they
are the
guys and gals orthodox thinkers wish would just go away. They are the
troublemakers and thought leaders and the visionaries. Those pesky
heretics
are the causes of social and scientific change.

Think of heresies as darwinian mutations. Heresies are thought mutations
and
these mutations introduce new ideas into society. Then natural selection
causes
these new ideas to take hold or die out if they just don't work. Without
mutations of thought ? heresies -- there is no evolution of any kind.

Lets take a look at a few of my favorite heretics and some of their
ideas.

Just 5 years after poor michael servetus provided an afternoons
entertainment
Giordano Bruno was born. He came along about the time the catholic
church was
having real trouble with the likes of Martin Luther and the growing
protestant
movement called the reformation. Bruno liked the ideas of Copernicus who
thought the earth revolved around the sun. Can you imagine anything as
crazy at
that? Bruno suggested that, can you imagine, every star in the sky was a
distant sun and even more heretical, was that each star had orbiting
planets.
now I will admit it only took 450 years to discover that at least some
of those
stars in the heavens do indeed have orbiting planets, but you have got
to give
him credit for being a thought leader of his day. What really irritated
the
orthodox thinkers was that he thought the universe was infinite. And if
the
universe was infinite, just exactly where could god live since christian
orthodoxy insisted that the creator is distinct from his creation. Bruno
thought that god dwells everywhere and therefore committed the heresy of
pantheism. And to make matters worse he thought servetus was right ? the
trinity
was an error in thinking. The inquisition had designs on his body and
cardinal
Bellarmino had him roasted in 1600. And btw, Cardinal Bellarmino was
declared a
saint in 1930.

Galileo saw moons going around jupiter and demonstrated beyond doubt
that we
live in a heliocentric universe and it got him house arrest

Now some of you have heard of Jesus of Nazareth -- an obscure Jewish
hippie liberal heretic. The orthodox thinkers of the day taught that
rigid
conformity with Jewish law was paramount but Jesus disagreed. He taught
instead that nothing was more important than the love of god and the
love of
your neighbors. The laws should be violated if they interfered with ones
acting lovingly. Jesus challenged orthodoxy and so provided another
afternoon of entertainment for the local populace. This heresy 2000
years
ago led to a world wide religion.

Dianne Turpin [a congregant] reminded me of the following UU heretic --
Ralph
Waldo Emmerson. Emmerson lived in the mid 1800s and was an essayist,
pubic
speaker, school master, and Unitarian minister. Emerson outraged the
christian
Unitarian community with his beliefs that while Jesus was a great man,
he was
not god: he rejected the historical miracles of Jesus; and he preached
that
moral intuition is a better guide to the moral sentiment than religious
doctrine. At this time such statements were unheard of and certainly not
welcomed. For this, he was denounced as an atheist, a poisoner of young
men's
minds, and a heretic.

forty years later his position had become standard Unitarian doctrine.

"Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path
and leave
a trail." -	Ralph Waldo Emerson

Even our own Rev. Dan Higgins is in my opinion, a bit of a heretic
having run
afoul of christian church politics and civil rights issues and jumped
the fence
to become a Unitarian Universalists minister.

Not all heresy is theological and being a physician I will briefly
mention a
couple of medical heretics. The first is Ignaz Simmelweiss, an
obstetrician in
vienna in the middle 1800s. He thought that washing your hands after
doing
autopsies and before doing pelvic examinations of mothers who had just
given
birth was a good idea. Through this simple act of handwashing he
markedly
decreased childbed fever and death but the orthodox physicians of the
day
rejected his heretical ideas on handwashing and it was a generation
before the
germ theory caught on and doctors began to wash their hands and use
rubber
gloves. Ignaz eventually died in an insane asylum. How many women died
of
pureperal fever because Ignaz was a heretic and his advanced thinking
was
rejected by the medical community?

When I went to medical school back in the dark ages of the 1950s the
orthodox
thinking of the day was that the inside of the stomach was sterile.
Everyone
knew that germs couldn't live in the high acid environment. Period. In
the
1980s a couple of guys from australia, Barry Marshal and J. Robin
Warren,
discovered germs actually doing quite nicely in that acid environment
and were
probably causing ulcers. And, you know what, nobody believed them. Of
course
they were right. Btw those two heretics won the nobel prize in medicine
in
2005.

It is important to point out here that significant social change often
seems to
take a generation or two to be adopted 20 to 40 years
sometimes you just have to wait for all old orthodox thinkers to die
off.

There is a present day heresy that is, in my opinion, just on the verge
of
gaining wider social acceptability. it has been around in its modern
form for
some 20 to 30 years and, with the help of the internet is spreading
worldwide.

The social change I am talking about is called polyamory.

The word polyamory is now part of the english language having been added
to both
the Merriam Webster and Oxford English dictionaries in 2006

The OED defines polyamory as: polyamory, n.

1)	the fact of having simultaneous close emotional relationships
with two or
more other individuals, viewed as an alternative to monogamy, esp. in
regard to
matters of sexual fidelity; 2)	the custom or practice of engaging in
multiple
sexual/emotional relationships with the knowledge and consent of all
partners
concerned.

It was with great trepidation I gave one of the first sermons to any
Unitarian
Universalist congregation on polyamory in our Quaker meeting house some
6
years ago. This movement has grown and there is now a 401c3 organization
(tax
deductable religious educational organization just like this fellowship)
""Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness with several local
chapters,
over a hundred dues paid members and several, albeit closeted,
UU polyamorous clergy.

This heretical movement is now, thanks to the internet, worldwide in
most of the
western nations as well as one or two middle east countries.

So what is the orthodoxy/heresy thing here?

Orthodox thinking is that we are supposed to marry our childhood
sweethearts,
have babies, and live happily monogamously till death do us part 60
years
later. The reality is that we don't. The reality is some marry, divorce,
cheat, change partners, practice adultery, serial monogamy, and on and
on.
Orthodox thinking says we are supposed to love only one. Yet we know
that
some people practice multiple partnering. Multiple partnering is the
elephant in the living room that we just won't recognize or talk about.
In polite society there is a conspiracy of silence about
multipartnering.

As I like to say: Listen carefully to what people do.

The heresy here is that, in contrast to orthodox thinking,
polyamorists recognize, embrace, and accept our true human behavior
and try to incorporate this behavior into their lives
in a very open and honest way. Authenticy, honesty and communication
in sex and relationships are the main priniples of poly thought.
Polyamorists believe that lives lived without deceipt and without
repression of thoughts are more healthy
and in the long run lead to stronger and
happier relationships and authentic lives.

poly folks are strong believers that each of us should choose our own
path in
forming our families, forming relationships, and being authentic in our
sexuality. and yes, polyamorists believe that you can love more than
one.

Traditional monogamy is what we have learned.
It is all that we know.
The heresy of polyamory requires a lot of thinking out of the box.
It suggests that there are many pathways to building loving
relationships.

I predict that this modern heresy will be much better understood
and accepted in another generation.
We just have to wait for all the old time orthodox thinkers to die.

[show tee shirt purchased at UU GA:

front:
"Unitarian Universalist diversity"
"not always easy, not always obvious;
but always worth the effort."

back: "Some of my best friends are both UU and Polyamorous" ...

I will finish up with a short look at Unitarian principles
and how they relate to heresy.


The inherent worth and dignity of every person
-- heretics are persons.
Although you do not agree with their thinking,
use the heretic as learning experience.
Ask them to explain their heresy.
As a Unitarian Universalist heretic,
you do have the obligation to hear out the heretic and make a full
faith attempt at understanding. You can choose to take it or leave it

A free and responsible search for truth and meaning
-- never forget that one
of our principles requires us to ask questions and seek the truth.
And this requires that we learn of individual (and heretical) truths
as well as the orthodoxy or socially acceptible truths.

When dealing with heretics,
always attempt to have a dialogue that leads to
understanding and not a debate that tends to polarize.

I'll close with a quotation from Schopenhauer

All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

It takes a heretic to start the process going.

Kenneth R. Haslam Md 20 May 2007