God Is Still Speaking

July 12, 2007 on 9:07 am | In Unitarian Universalism | 22 Comments

At a party the other night, I shared my plans to spend my free summer Sundays worshiping at various churches. I said that I’d already spent one Sunday with Episcopalians in Portland and one with Methodists in Seattle. The room full of liberals looked at me like I was crazy. “Well, that’s an interesting variety,” one said. Okay, sneered. She sneered.

A UU man said, ” I saw a sign recently that said ‘God is still speaking.’ I wondered who they think He, or It, is speaking to.” He was obviously and coldly disgusted by the irrationality of this.

I said, “Yea, that’s the new United Church of Christ campaign, the God is Still Speaking campaign.”

He said, “So who do they think God is speaking to?” The sarcasm fairly dripped.

“To everyone!” I said.

He replied, “I read that there’s a certain point in the Old Testament where God just stops talking. ..”

“Yes,” I interrupted. “As a specific theophany to individuals, yes, that happens at a point in the Hebrew Scriptures.”

The man looked at me like this was of very little interest to him. I shouldn’t have interrupted him, but I saw where he was going and it was just more sarcasm and biting disdain for the stupid idea that God “speaks” to anyone, at any time. I guess the expression “revelation is not sealed” doesn’t ring with spiritual promise for everyone.

Which leads me to ask, how is God still speaking in your life? If that framework doesn’t work for you, let me put it this way: where do you find “revelation(s)?”

In a related question, a reader just wrote to me and asked how I experience the “living Christ.” I’ll write about that later, but if you feel like responding to her, go right ahead.

22 Comments

  1. It makes me think that this campaign — for what small things that don’t quite work with it — is part of a larger, generation-long move by the more liberal half of American Protestantism to apply what I’ve heard called Protestant catholicity, of which I’m a willing participant.

    In this case, a claim that God speaks apart from inspired scripture. Some might only see that as Romanticism, but it is a respected Christian position and a vital alternative to Protestant fundamentalism, its chief rival.

    It seems this nuance is too frequently lost.

    Comment by Scott (Boy in the Bands) — July 12, 2007 #

  2. If God no longer speaks to us, what is the point? Really. What is the point of relationship with one who will not participate?

    No, I think you are right PeaceBang. God is speaking, God has been speaking through all of human history, to all people, everywhere. We are, however, woefully bad at listening! (To God, and each other.)

    God speaks in a still small voice. Sometimes through the words or actions of another, through the teachings of another religion, or even in a moment of crystal clarity and revelation when truth becomes obvious for just a heartbeat.

    Without God’s voice in the world it would be a cold, lonely place. Without God’s whispered voice I am not being “called” to anything, I am simply setting my heart on a whim.

    I do not know the UU well, but I know the Episcopal church and know that we are often equally afraid (yes I think afraid is the right word) to listen for God. It would be safer to say He ceased to speak in the ancient past. That would contain God’s words safely on a piece of paper where they can be studied and interpreted. God who still speaks and moves in the world is not nearly as safe…

    -Tandaina

    Comment by Tandaina — July 12, 2007 #

  3. That sounds like a great plan, PB. It’s sort of an adult version of the old children’s RE program The Church Across the Street. The next time a bunch of clueless people like that start acting that way at a party, you ought to point out that not only might your visits nurture your soul, they will absolutely make you a better minister. Sort of professional development. I go to non-UU services all over the place and in many religions, but of course research on North American religion is literally my job.

    Living Christ doesn’t mean anything to me, so I’ll leave that one aside. But that still small voice is certainly still operative in the lives of people who take the time to sincerely and humbly listen for it. God may not speak in a booming voice out of clouds or burning bushes anymore, but that hardly means God is inaccessible to those who seek for the right reasons and in the right spirit.

    Comment by Jeff W. — July 12, 2007 #

  4. Jeff’s got it about right. It’s the same still, small voice that Elijah heard. The NRSV translates it as “a sound of sheer silence”. It’s still speaking, but it still takes just as much effort to discern what it is telling us as in Elijah’s day. That’s why your sarcastic acquaintance can’t hear it. He doesn’t want to try.

    As John Greenleaf Whittier wrote,

    Breathe through the heats of our desire
    Thy coolness and thy balm;
    Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
    Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
    O still, small voice of calm.

    Or as his contemporary Ralph Waldo Emerson more floridly expressed it:

    So much benevolence as a man hath, so much life hath he. For all things proceed out of this same spirit, which is differently named love, justice, temperance, in its different applications, just as the ocean receives different names on the several shores which it washes. All things proceed out of the same spirit, and all things conspire with it. Whilst a man seeks good ends, he is strong by the whole strength of nature. In so far as he roves from these ends, he bereaves himself of power, of auxiliaries; his being shrinks out of all remote channels, he becomes less and less, a mote, a point, until absolute badness is absolute death.

    The perception of this law of laws awakens in the mind a sentiment which we call the religious sentiment, and which makes our highest happiness. Wonderful is its power to charm and to command. It is a mountain air. It is the embalmer of the world. It is myrrh and storax, and chlorine and rosemary. It makes the sky and the hills sublime, and the silent song of the stars is it. By it, is the universe made safe and habitable, not by science or power. Thought may work cold and intransitive in things, and find no end or unity; but the dawn of the sentiment of virtue on the heart, gives and is the assurance that Law is sovereign over all natures; and the worlds, time, space, eternity, do seem to break out into joy.

    This sentiment is divine and deifying. It is the beatitude of man. It makes him illimitable. Through it, the soul first knows itself. It corrects the capital mistake of the infant man, who seeks to be great by following the great, and hopes to derive advantages from another, — by showing the fountain of all good to be in himself, and that he, equally with every man, is an inlet into the deeps of Reason. When he says, “I ought;” when love warms him; when he chooses, warned from on high, the good and great deed; then, deep melodies wander through his soul from Supreme Wisdom. Then he can worship, and be enlarged by his worship; for he can never go behind this sentiment. In the sublimest flights of the soul, rectitude is never surmounted, love is never outgrown.

    Comment by fausto — July 12, 2007 #

  5. Started commenting, but it grew too long:
    http://uuminister.blogspot.com/2007/07/revelation-is-not-sealed.html

    Comment by Lizard Eater — July 12, 2007 #

  6. I don’t think that God is speaking to me at all, but can see it as a metaphor. I’m struggling to hear what the people around me are trying to tell me, what the planet needs, what my body requires, and so on.

    Comment by h sofia — July 12, 2007 #

  7. God speaks to me when I suddenly tear up “for no reason.” The message is, “Pay attention. This is important. Find out why you are moved by this.” And when I realize that I am important enough for these special messages of awareness, I cry a bit more.

    When I am in a quiet place of contemplation, waiting for the still small voice, I am listening. But when I cry, I am hearing.

    Comment by Louise — July 12, 2007 #

  8. New perspectives and ideas come from other people, reflection, and experience.

    Comment by Citizen — July 12, 2007 #

  9. Aha! Just found this much pithier one from Emerson:

    It is the office of a true teacher to show us that God is, not was; that He speaketh, not spake.

    Chalk one up for the home team! Take that, UCC! (And you, too, Mr. Sarcastic Superior UU. You think you know something Waldo didn’t?)

    Comment by fausto — July 12, 2007 #

  10. Whenever I end up in conversations like that with UU’s I wonder what the heck they have been learning from their clergy all these years in our pews — and if the folks have been part of my parish for years I wonder how I have fallen down on my work with them. That kind of intolerance and theological ignorance drove me out of the UU church as a child and tempts me to pack it up from time to time. However, that kind of thing is less ubiquitous than it once was — Praise God.

    Comment by Kate — July 12, 2007 #

  11. Is God still speaking? Of course to us UUs, we have to ask “Is God (by whatever name) still speaking?”
    And I think how we define God, is also how we hear God. I hear God in the cool breeze on a mountain top, in the smiles and laughter of others, in the caring and concern of friends – and strangers.

    I found it interesting that you suggest that if we find God speaking too hard to explain, we could explain finding revelation(s)…. To me that would be much harder to describe – or even to know if one had a revelation….or am i confusing a revelation with enlightenment?

    Comment by Steven R — July 12, 2007 #

  12. It’s important to understand the “God is still speaking” campaign in context. The UCC is not talking to us UU humanists, but rather to that large portion of the Xn faith that says, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” They are saying that there’s more truth in the world than is found between Genesis 1:1 and Revelation 22:21. And so I am glad for the good work they are doing, even though my journey has taken me to a place where there is no longer any God, speaking or silent.

    Comment by Heather — July 12, 2007 #

  13. Thanks for these wonderful offerings, friends.

    Steven asks about the difference between revelation, which I define as a spiritual “ah ha” moment that makes the world seem a sacred place, and enlightenment, which I think of as having achieved a level of spiritual wisdom. Hope that helps, Steven. To make it even simpler, revelation is an experience, a “showing” of God as Theresa of Avila would have put it. Enlightenment is an achievement. And I ain’t achieved it yet.

    Comment by PeaceBang — July 12, 2007 #

  14. I’m not real familiar with the campaign. I did attend a UCC church last Sunday and it inspired me to blog about mainline Protestantism this week. As an agnostic, the phrase “God is still speaking” is meaningless to me. As an open-minded religious humanist, I suppose the phrase means to me that religion still matters and that people are and will always search for meaning and “God.”

    As someone who studies religion from a sociological perspective, I see it as a marketing campaign from a shrinking mainline denomination that knows it needs a better public image and for people to take it seriously and see it as a strong, vivid, living Christian faith. It’s as if the UCC is saying “Liberal Christianity is alive and reflects the way that God would want us Christians to act and think.”

    As a lifelong Mormon until last year, the idea that God speaks still is not a strange or foreign idea at all. It is an idea that is central to Mormon doctrine, belief, and history. I can certainly understand the potential power of it. And the UCC has that nifty comma logo for the campaign.

    Comment by Stephen Merino — July 12, 2007 #

  15. God speaks to me all the time. I think the people who say God isn’t speaking are those whose idea of “God” is still very much wrapped up in the traditional idea of the the conservative Christian church. As if God literally speaks with mouth and tongue in an audible way.

    God speaks to me in the lyrics of a song on my van radio and suddenly my heart is stirred, God speaks to me in the words of a book I am reading and my heart is stirred, God speaks to me in the eyes of a child who runs up and shows me some wonder of nature and my heart is stirred, etc.

    As Tandaina said, it isn’t so much about whether God is speaking but rather whether we are “hearing” those messages as coming from God. When I am moved to rejoice in the moment at what a wonderful world this is or to be moved into action to “do the right thing” I know those are messages from God.

    I still remember the day I started finally “hearing”. My life was changed that day – you might say I was “born again”. ;-)

    Comment by Mama G — July 13, 2007 #

  16. I responded at greater length at my blog, too.

    Comment by fausto — July 13, 2007 #

  17. Is God still speaking?…

    Louise’s comment on PeaceBang’s article God is Still Speaking hit a strong resonant chord within me. She wrote:
    God speaks to me when I suddenly tear up “for no reason.” The message is, “Pay attention. This is important. Find out why …

    Trackback by Rambles — July 13, 2007 #

  18. Rev. Scott Alexander had a reading at a district conference many years that commented on the unfinished nature of revelation in our faith.

    He said that revelation was an open door and not a sealed vault (my rough paraphrase from memory).

    Whether revelation comes from God or some other source, I think we agree with our UCC cousins that we don’t have the final religious word on any topic.

    Comment by Steve Caldwell — July 13, 2007 #

  19. I’m feeling very bad for the guy who does not believe that God still speaks. I just happen to be going through a very rich period of life, where it feels as though God says, “Look! Look at this!” every single day of my life. And of course, there’s the experience of writing sermons. Do people really think I just make this stuff up? Now THAT would be crazy. I’m not that inexhaustably creative. The Holy Spirit sits on my shoulder and dictates. This is unusual, but this week my sermon took about an hour to write. All I had to do was write it down — I didn’t make it up. I’ll admit that I also feel a little angry that someone could be so close-minded and dismissive about the fact (yes, FACT) that God still speaks to those who listen. I would suggest that he cultivate the art of listening. Sounds like he’s not very open to listening to God or to other humans. I know this sounds uncharitable, but there you are.

    Comment by Ann — July 13, 2007 #

  20. Well of course God is still speaking….you just have to figure out what that person considers to be God.
    Is this person’s God science/medicine? Philosophy? Literature? All of these Gods speak all the time.

    I find it more than a little depressing that so many UUs have turned their backs on our forefathers who spoke of continuing revelation all the time. Makes me wonder what Channing, Murray and the rest would think of us today.

    Comment by Kim Hampton — July 14, 2007 #

  21. The notion of whether God is speaking or not really depends on what kind of God you think you are talking about. Those who claim God is not still speaking to us have what I believe to be a rather medieval concept of God–a patriarch in the sky, a divine magician, who lords “over” creation and who either waves “his” magic wand or doesn’t, who either “speaks” to us miraculously or doesn’t.

    I don’t think that kind of God makes any sense. Instead, if you think of God as being not just outside of us but also within us, continuously active in creation, as continually calling out to us, as offering creative possibilities and divine love at each moment, then you realize that it is impossible for God not to be continuously speaking to us all the time.

    Comment by Mystical Seeker — July 16, 2007 #

  22. I’ve assumed that the U.C.C.’s “God is still speaking” campaign hearkened back to John Robinson’s final speech to the Pilgrims as they disembarked for the New World in 1620, urging them not to close their minds and hearts to new truths. He declared:

    “I Charge you before God and his blessed angels that you follow me no further than you have seen me follow Christ. If God reveal anything to you by any other instrument of His, be as ready to receive it as you were to receive any truth from my ministry, for I am verily persuaded the Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth from His holy word.

    “The Lutherans cannot be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw. Whatever part of His will our God has revealed to Calvin, they (Lutherans) will rather die than embrace it; and the Calvinists, you see, stick fast where they were left by that great man of God, who yet saw not all things. This is a misery much to be lamented.

    “For though they were precious shining lights in their time, yet God has not revealed his whole will to them. And were they now living, they would be as ready and willing to embrace further light, as they had received.”

    This idea that “the Lord had more truth and light yet to break out of his holy word,” and that Robinson’s own congregation should feel free to find truth and enlightenment beyond that known to him, strikes me as a principle at the very heart of our religious liberalism.

    It is an attitude, I suspect, that accounts for why the Pilgrim’s congregation in the New World is today a Unitarian Universalist congregation.

    But the Pilgrims’ heritage is one that the United Church of Christ shares with us, as our sibling denomination – - they the Trinitarian Congregationalists, and we the Unitarian Congregationalists, whose paths diverged in the early 1800s.

    I have to say that I am proud to call the United Church of Christ our sibling denomination – - and that I find its “God is still speaking” ad campaign truly moving.

    You know the United Church of Christ is on the right path from the fact that the major networks banned the first “God is still speaking” ad on the ground that honoring gay and lesbian people as worthy of Christian love conflicts with the Bush Administration’s homophobic policies.

    CBS explained that because “the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS and UPN] networks.”

    The “God is still speaking” commercial can be found here:

    http://www.ucc.org/god-is-still-speaking/

    And CBS’s explanation for banning it from the airwaves can be found here:

    http://www.ucc.org/news/cbs-nbc-refuse-to-air.html

    Comment by e. isaacson — August 2, 2007 #

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

Powered by WordPress with Pool theme design by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds. Valid XHTML and CSS. ^Top^