In part one of A House For Hope Rebecca Parker, in Chapter
one, This Holy Ground, discusses eschatology which is the theological term
for “last things”, “end times”, ultimate hopes. Most religions inject fear into
their adherents speaking not only of personal death, but the final stage of
humanity. I was taught as a young boy that I would go to hell if I did not
accept the moral precepts and teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Parker
writes on page 5,
“Scripts about the end of the world tend to become
compulsive, self-serving prophecies. They feed what theologian Catherine Keller
calls the West’s ‘apocalyptic habit’, predilection to see the impending end of
history in one’s own time and to act it out.”
Christians have been waiting for Jesus’ return since he
died. Predictions of the “Second Coming” abound and as I write this many people
are expecting the end of the world in December of 2012 because of superstitious
beliefs about the Mayan calendar.
Parker writes further, “Journalist and commentator Bill
Moyers notes that ‘people under the spell of such potent prophecies’ represent
a significant voting bloc in U.S. politics. As one leading U.S. senator aligned
with this theological perspective put it, people cannot be expected ‘to worry
about the environment. Why care about the earth when the droughts, floods,
famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of apocalypse
foretold in the Bible?’”
This kind of apocalyptic thinking is quite different from
the Unitarian Universalist view which is captured in the seventh principle
which is “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a
part” as well as the view of Native American spirituality as when Chief Seattle
said, “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within
it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound
together. All things connect.”
And so I wonder what UUs should tell the world about the
destiny of human evolution? What does Unitarian Universalism teach about the
nature of the world and the destiny of human beings in it? Is the Unitarian Universalist
theology about the purpose of existence unique in any way and different than
other mainstream religions? If so, what is the framework of meaning that
Unitarian Universalists propose that humankind consider as they wonder about
their purpose in the Universe?
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