1. WHAT DOES WORSHIP MEAN?

WORTH, CONNECTION, ORDER.  “Worship” is sometimes narrowly understood as bowing down to some supposed deity. The etymology of the word, however, leads us to a far more significant activity. The root of “worship” is worthship, considering things of worth. “Religion” (religare) means to bind up, to reconnect, to get it all together. Worship is thus the central activity of religion because through worship we reconnect with worth. Worship is a compelling vision of life in its fullness. Its scope, diversity, coherence and power engender the fundamental meanings, values and relations for our lives. Worship centers us. It gives us a perspective that orders the Void, the chaos of unconnected fragments of experience. Through worship we find our connections and take our place in society and the cosmos. Here beholding and becoming are the same.

THE CREATION AND CELEBRATION OF HUMAN VALUES AND MEANINGS.  It is fashionable nowadays to describe worship as “the celebration of life.” This too easily becomes a party or a vague sentiment. Worship is the celebration of life in its depths—intimate, intense, and ultimate. Through worship we discover, enliven, enrich, create, order, enhance, and empower what gives life worth. We experience awe, wonder, flow, fitness, appreciation, refreshment, and commitment.

THE WHOLE.  This does not mean there is an ontological Whole or Absolute Worth. It does not mean that all things actually fit together. On the other hand, worship is not illusory or simply “subjective.” It does mean that worship is the activity that fits things together, that reaches toward a whole as we create ourselves and our world.

SPONTANEOUS WORSHIP.  One can worship alone, “communing with nature,” in the ritual of a sport or other play, in work and in social action. Worship is not necessarily an orderly, regular calculated process, though it always creates order. Worship is more like falling in love, like being struck with the majesty of Mont Blanc, or like the surprise and gratitude we feel when someone touches us deeply in an unexpected way. For the creation and celebration of values, meanings and relations appears accidental perhaps as often as devised: if directed, then often outside ordinary awareness. The spirit of God, before creation, brooded on the waters before there were even any words. So our spirits hover in the Void, until we discover meanings emerging. Thus Schweitzer came upon “reverence for life,” Einstein formed the Relativity theories, and Mu Ch’i painted his “six Persimmons.” After considerable brooding, each integrated values into a larger whole in a moment of high awareness, of spontaneity and freedom. Such a consideration of worth occurs when the horizontal and the vertical—the mundane and the transcendent—suddenly intersect for us. There we gain awareness; we create a new or renewed order through which the entire universe plays.

2. PUBLIC WORSHIP

DELIBERATE WORSHIP.  Thus we rejoice when we unexpectedly find ourselves worshipping.  But there is also place for the deliberate, labored consideration of values, whether they be themes Beethoven nurtured into the Fifth Symphony or the relation of First Amendment freedom of the press with Sixth  Amendment guarantees of jury impartiality. Conscious and intended worship seeks to name our gods—to identify our values—even if they be such only for the never-ending moment. Hidden and unacknowledged gods can rule our behavior without our knowing it. Naming our gods and taking responsibility for assessing their worth enlarges our freedom. When we find we hold conflicting values, we may be alienated—unconnected—from ourselves and each other. Worship is the healing of such splits.

IDOLATRY.  Regular worship, a continuing reconsideration of values, as our lives and society change, prevents ossification and idolatry by guarding us from confounding the proximate with the transcendent. The discipline of deliberate worship thus is a source of expansion and freedom. Giving thanks even for the unknown, we can in high awareness choose the ways of growth, proportion, and flow.

“WORK OF THE PEOPLE.”  The church offers the discipline of deliberate worship. A community of faith, the church adds the dimension of human life to worship in nature. Private and public worship enhance each other. The presence of others who challenge and enrich our lives with competing and supporting agendas and priorities gives us additional eyes through which to see the universe—to reconnect us to ourselves, one another and the cosmos. Public worship then is not a presentation; it is involvement. It is not a lecture, concert or program. Liturgy means “the work of the people.”

EXPERIENCE, NOT EXPLANATION.  Liturgy is an immediate yet eternal experience which demands the participation of everyone in the religious community. It is not a simulation of some other experience, like theater. It is not merely an explanation of the way things are or ought to be. Liturgy transcends various styles or levels of interpretation since it is a prior unity of experience. For example, two persons taking part in mass may have different explanations of it and of the world. One may understand things quite literally; the other may give a mythical or metaphorical interpretation. The important fact is that they are both taking part in the same event, a sign of their human bondedness to one another and all life. Liturgy thus permits greater freedom than do rhetorical injunctions. While exegesis often divides, liturgy encourages “unity in diversity.” This does not mean intellectual precision is unimportant. Theological homework is required. A “worship arts” committee, more dance and drama, a new organ or a poetical sermon without transcendent reference will fail to meet the deepest human needs. Nevertheless openness to the experience of transcendence is more important than a precise analysis of what is or is not.

PLAY. Worship, like sex is a supreme form of play. Play liberates us from the work mentality that seeks (at least functional) absolutes by which to judge our activities. In play, in worship, we need no reason outside life to give life meaning. Some attend church as an obligation, to justify or earn their existence. Such an attitude profanes life’s character as a gift, unearned and unearnable. In worship we celebrate with wonder and gratitude the meaning of that gift. The consequent responses we seek to make are not to earn life, but to revere it in centered faithfulness.

3.  WORSHIP IN THIS AGE

A VISION OF WHOLENESS.  Our secular age gives us little access to a vision of wholeness. Our fragmentation masks from us the import of the human story. In our time it is difficult to find genuine open community. There are few tribes of people who trust one another enough to deal openly with the question of what is important in life. (New communities are appearing now, but often they are not open. Rigidly defined by narrow allegiances, they themselves participate in and perpetuate division in the world.) Our secular age has abandoned, demeaned or trivialized human rituals through which one once gained access to the whole. This situation also makes the development of new worship forms awkward and vexing. We have been parted from ourselves by rejecting ancient and humane customs and institutions. We have blasphemed the process which created new forms of Ordering. Simply because an institution—the presidency, the church, communion—has been abused, used hypocritically, deeply stained in many cases—is no reason to abandon it. The fact that love and friendship have been betrayed (which is very much the Passion story) does not require us to renounce these values (a discovery named Easter). Nor are past failures any excuse for refusing to fashion new rites and institutions.

RITUAL.  Nevertheless, we are beginning to appreciate ritual. Ritual is done by custom, rote or habit. Much of our lives depends on ritual: tying our shoes, brushing our teeth. If we had to lean how to drive a car each time we got behind the wheel, life would be intolerable. Some ritual is needed in much of what we do. Ritual frees us to use the vehicle to go somewhere. But ritual alone is a blank book. Liturgy (the work of the people) fills the book with meaning. A prayer that appears a superstitious ritual to an observer may be to the participant a profound act of spiritual awakening.

AN ABRAXAN IRONY.  If worship is the reconnection, the integration of experience, then it is possible only if there are real fragments needing unification. The very alienation of our age gives us the opportunity for empowering liturgy. Our corporate worship seeks to embrace and connect individual resources and priorities. So “evil” and “alienation” cannot be excluded as we move toward the whole. It is the tension between the actual and the ideal which not only wants resolution through worship but which inspires it in the first place.

THE SIZE OF THE LITURGY.  Because our lives are varied and few of us are at identical places in our cognitive and emotional development, public worship must be large enough to address different ages, classes, conditions, and concerns. The liturgy must embody all organs of the human adventure, with all its directions and contrasts. Such liturgy reorders our differences in the large view and makes them whole. Liturgy appealing only to the "traditionalists," or the iconoclasts, or the, successful or the visitors, is a liturgy without the dimension and integrity which stretches, restores and renews our lives. Only a very large liturgy can speak to all of us. If we are to grow religiously, we need worlds of vision beyond those we know now. If parts of the liturgy fail to speak to us at one point in our lives, it may mean there are worthy things yet to behold. Only a very large liturgy can speak to us for a lifetime.

HOW THE EXPERIENCE IS FORMED. While spontaneity is possible and desirable, public worship enables rich and durable forms of worship to emerge, just as a symphony is developed. Many liturgical forms epitomize the history and possibilities of human interaction. Some of these forms are no longer suitable but many have been unnecessarily neglected and deserve renewal. The smells, vestments, motions, phrases, sounds and houses of worship themselves can convey and further the ordering of awareness, the design of fitness and fullness, the reconnections of genuine faith. The liturgy, with its psychological order and theological sequence, is the central means through which individual participants discover their parts in the human enterprise, and by which the church itself finds and expresses its corporate identity.

LITURGY AND THE WORLD.  But liturgy is more than an instrument of the individual and the church. The self and the world, spirit and politics, intersect in liturgy. Through liturgy we change the world by changing ourselves. Worship brings it all together. Through liturgy we involve ourselves in the larger society with greater vision and effect. In worship we freely touch the changing world with access to the experiences of the past and the present with the imagination and invention of a people honestly sharing their personal religious pilgrimages together in tribal celebration, in centering, in ordering.

WORSHIP AND SEX.  If worship involves the intimate, the intense and the ultimate, then worship is to the church as sex is to marriage. Like the sexuality of marriage, worship cannot be its only activity or its exclusive basis, or it has no real life in the world. Yet the worship of the church, again like sexuality in marriage, is the essential sacrament defining and enlivening other personal, social, economic and political sides of the institution's life. Further, like sexuality in prostitution, dead forms of worship are detached rather than intimate, shallow rather than intense, and trivial rather than ultimate. Moreover, a church without worship is like a platonic marriage, meeting special needs of a few but for most failing to command the interest, energy, imagination and commitment of a rich relationship. The obvious alternative to regular worship with a community of faith is to remain single (unchurched).

4. THE UNITARIAN UNIVERALIST EMBRACE

THE WHOLE PERSON. Just as worship is an act of the entire community of faith, so it is an act of the whole person—intellect, esthetic sense, body, emotion. Literal truth is too confining: We would lose Beethoven, Rembrandt, Shakespeare and maybe even Emerson with a creedal test. Many important decisions—such as choosing one’s spouse—are not made simply by intellectual calculation. Pure emotional appeals are too transitory to reorder one's vision with clarity. The liturgy demands our presence as whole persons involved with one another, and thus reconnects us.

This sometimes means singing or saying something we may not literally believe but which, from another perspective, informs our experience. Many of us left Christian churches that required literal acceptance of creedal statements, and offered few alternative modes of expression. What is important is not so much the words but rather the experiencing of legitimate religious moods and modes, no one of which can be taken as final and completely comprehensive.

OUR GENIUS.  We find it easy to enjoy different kinds of people and viewpoints. We can rejoice in many languages. We can love Dante even if we cannot accept his cosmology; we can sing the Beethoven Credo even if we cannot subscribe to it; we can feel and revere the 1905 Symphony of Shostakovitch though we abhor communism; we can participate in a Hindu chant without compromising our own mythologies; we can enjoy Christian communion without patching it up to fit our own prejudices; we can teach "Silent Night" to our children though we disbelieve the Virgin Birth; we can be moved by Hamlet while we deny the existence of ghosts. We can sing, we can dance, we can rejoice without censoring any honest hallelujah or plea for help. Our genius is being able to see God, the Void or Whatever, working in every person and place.

5. THE UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST OPPORTUNITY

UU CONTEXT.  Our churches, especially where liturgy is not automatic or routine, have an unparalleled opportunity today for the renewal of liturgy. Where clear-thinking people celebrate their companionship with one another and with human struggles through out the ages, separations can be healed through the revival of the art of worship. However, just as it is difficult for someone who has never heard baroque music to understand the musical language of Bach, so we must overcome the prejudice against liturgical forms to develop and communicate with a rich religious language. Such a language appeals to the entire person. Without it Unitarian Universalism will continue to be for many a revolving door into the secular world. Without it our children will find our intellectual emphasis inadequate to sustain their commitment to our movement, as they will also find the cute "smelling the flower is worship" too weak to inform their decisions with wisdom. With a rich liturgical tradition we can build temples of meaning and societies of justice.

DISCIPLINE. To develop an empowering liturgy, the professional UU leadership must turn from the charismatic model. The churches must turn from narcissism. No longer may we pride ourselves as mavericks. We must become virtuosi in the art of worship. Instead of inventing the wheel each week in each church in our individual ways, we must develop disciplines for sharing the technical as well as "spiritual" aspect of worship as we use it and live it in our churches and lives. While each congregation must retain control over its own worship, such disciplined sharings—tested through wide rather than idiosyncratic usage—offers a hope for moving beyond pulpit exchanges and shuttling programs towards a body of powerful common liturgy adaptable to specific situations. Such disciplines would refine, enrich and enlarge our practices into a genuine living and growing liturgical tradition.

6. OUR WORK

This is the work of the Congregation of Abraxas: liturgical renewal. We believe the human enterprise and the health of our churches requires above all else the capacity and vehicles for genuine private and public worship. We want to renew liturgy in our lives so it will renew us and our society. We hope the suggestions of this essay are part of an open Renewal process.

ABRAXAS—An order of Unitarian Universalist ministers and lay people who see worship as the center of our liberal religious life and work, and who have joined together to develop liturgical materials through a collegial process. Drawing on Eastern and western religious themes, the group is concerned with the forms and content of both public worship and private devotional discipline. Friends receive mailings from the group. General Members participate in collegial writing and decision making. Ordered Members take upon themselves a special discipline of work and sharing. Membership in all levels is for a year at a time. Samples of published materials and further information about the Congregation and its retreats can be obtained by writing the Executive Secretary at P.O. Box 4165, Overland Park, KS 66204.[No longer available -- write P.O. Box 45414, Kansas City, MO 64171.]

This essay, originally a pamphlet (1976), appears on pages 22-26 in the 207-page 1980/81 volume, The Congregation of Abraxas Worship Reader and Supplement: Essays in Worship Theory from Von Ogden Vogt (1921) to the UUA Commission on Common Worship (1980) -- copies of which should be at the theological schools.

This essay was drafted by Vern the Void and perfected by comments from Duke the Dumb, Fred the Full, Stephan the Spare, and Harry the Holy, all in agreement with every word.

Abraxas was a big part of my life. The five of us (Harry the Holy, Duke the Dumb, Fred the Full, Stephan the Spare -- and I was Vern the Void), all Unitarian Universalist ministers  who started the group in 1975, studied the Rule of Benedict and decided to form ourselves as a "liturgical and missionary order" for our fellow UUs (our mission field), who, we felt, too often practiced a shallow and impotent form of Sunday assembly. We took vows paralleling poverty, chastity, and obedience: http://www.cres.org/pubs/abraxasG.htm . 
     We wanted to draw upon the world's traditions of awe, repentance, thanksgiving, and service, and to renew those forms for the liberal religious communities. 

Originally our monastic enterprise was for the five of us, but as people found out about us, they wanted to join, so we developed postulancy and ordination processes as folks (mainly lay) wanted to come to our retreats, some as long as eight days, sometimes as many as twenty lay people, which we held around the continent, from New York to Berkeley to Toronto. Most clergy seemed uninterested in anything that would upset their routine worship (usually sermon-focused rather than sacramental practice). 

The hunger for real worship was apparent whenever Abraxas offered worship opportunities. For example, a rabidly humanist fellowship took a chance with an Abraxas Eucharist. Careful preparation of the congregation to lower the literalists' fears led to remarkably full participation in the sacred rite, even by vociferous atheists. The relative disinterest of the majority of UU professionals to engage deeply in examining worship practices when it became clear that the laity, usually unknowingly, hungered for something more than an interesting and inspiring lecture, has been crushingly disappointing to me. 

My own good fortune in serving a congregation that welcomed all sorts of explorations and experiments in worship led to remarkable energy and reward. Whether it was Christian Midnight Mass (I was warned no one would come, but by the second Christmas the church was packed), Buddhist Wesak observances, Sufi dances, Jewish, Hindu, American Indian, and rituals of other faiths respectfully, all informed by Abraxas sensibility -- and of course Abraxas-influenced liturgies. My ministry concluded with the worship committee designing its own liturgy using the Abraxas four-part theory of liturgical design.

But denominationally, our success has been mainly in modeling for our colleagues the wearing of stoles or other vestments (following our presentation of a stole to then-UUA president Gene Pickett who wore it at General Assembly), though we claim some contributions through Fred Gillis (one of the O.F.= Original Five, also known as Old Farts) who served on the Commission on Common Worship, and Mark Belletini who chaired the Hymnbook Resources Commission, and later Wayne Arnason. "Wayne the Wide" (and Kathleen Rolenz) whose book Worship that Works: Theory and Practice for Unitarian Universalists shows a continuing interest in thinking about worship practices. 

Occasionally students will be intrigued about our work and some claim to be influenced, but I see no signs that the basic study we did, and explorations we charted, have provided any significant improvement to UU worship. Sometimes I hear of Abraxas materials being used or adapted in some way, and I wonder if this is being done in a charismatic (leader-centered) or virtuoso (congregation-centered)  manner, so I am relieved when I hear the focus is on the gathering rather than on the presider, on a world-wide heritage shared into the present hour rather than on the presumed wisdom of a particular person. A liturgical format (liturgy="the work of the people") makes the widest scope possible, and the use of the "cadenza" encourages spontaneity supported by structure.

 I have been greatly enriched in many ways by Abraxas. Since our emphasis was on the virtuoso, the skilled and trained one, not the charismatic, excessively personal style, we considered it of great importance to train folks how to lead liturgy as well as how to draft liturgical forms (our official publications were always "trial"). It may be as difficult to learn to lead worship from a book as it is to learn to play the piano from a book; experience, examples, a teacher may be a great benefit in entering a sacred tradition. 

Our commitment to publish only what was meaningful to all five of us, with vastly different theological perspectives (Christian and Buddhist to Humanist and atheist), led to transcendent discussions and worship, a great deal of learning and fun (our inside jokes still cheer me), as well as enduring affection.

Ever since the 1968 Cleveland GA, the UUA has pushed a demographic agenda and often neglected a religious mission. So much wasted energy! So little to show for it! People of color will be attracted when UU churches offer a comprehensive spiritual experience instead of the diversion of the moment or in-group. 
     Although I am now a retired UU minister, I worship at an Episcopal church which is far more diverse racially, economically, socially, age-wise, and by almost any other measure than the UU churches in my area (and the typical UU church) because at the church I attend genuine concerns such as racism are placed in a larger, deeper, richer religious context. I might add also that the theological diversity where I worship is far richer than at most UU churches with which I am acquainted, and without the frequent self-righteousness characteristic of UUism. 
     UUism lacks an articulated paradigmatic story which gives meaning to individual and church life. While it has had the resources of the world's religions to develop such a story and liturgy (it has "orders of service," not liturgy -- "the work of the people" -- because it focuses much of its worship not on genuine congregational participation but on charismatic ministerial utterances), UUism is repeatedly distracted from developing a global faith-story by fads and seemingly urgent social concerns. 
     That story, all-encompassing and everywhere applicable, is obvious on every level of existence, but it is so large that UUs, focused on whims and winds of momentary passions, cannot see it. It is a pattern and paradigm so palpable and powerful and unifying, laid out, articulated, and offered to our culture, and particularly within the UU movement, for decades now, but UUs are too wrapt up with what is perceived to be urgent that their "bandwidth" cannot reveal what is important, like trying to view a mountain from a snapshot of a weed at its base, or all of history from a single newspaper story. (One version is charted here.) The professional leadership model of Protestant proclamation, rather than sacramentally empowered laity, most often governs UU worship.
     So the UUA wastes its resources and energies doing what other organizations (ACLU, Project Equality, NAACP, Planned Parenthood, Southern Poverty Law Center, AFSC, etc) do better -- instead of focusing on its unique religious mission. Certainly UUs would want to be involved for social justice, but they should use instruments designed for that purpose instead of subverting the church. 
     (Local churches might well have a public issues committee to inform, and a social assistance ministry to play a special part in community welfare, but not a social/political action committee which often divides the congregation. Let members who want to organize social action join or create an effort outside the church structure and involve people from the larger community. The minister must have complete freedom to express one's thoughts and exercise a leadership role in the larger community according to one's judgment in consultation with the church leadership, distinguishing the conscience of the minister from the minister of the congregation. -- Purifying the UUA through unchallengeable assertions and self-righteousness blasphemes the UU heritage of reasoned discourse and has led to schism, not healing) 
     I once thought UUism would be a religion of the future, but now I doubt it because it allows itself to be hijacked from within and without. 
     I'm grateful to the Unitarian Universalist tradition for my own extraordinarily satisfying career, but the exciting promise I saw as a young minister in the UU movement seems weakened by the failure to nurture and exercise the story of humankind, placing the seven principles and six sources in the largest context, and dramatizing them with liturgical power.

1st Principle: The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
2nd Principle: Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
3rd Principle: Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
4th Principle: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
5th Principle: The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
6th Principle: The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
7th Principle: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Six Sources
-- Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
-- Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;
-- Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
-- Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;
-- Spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.
 
 #McWhorter

John McWhorter (NYTimes 2024 March 28) writes of a concern about anti-racism efforts in many universities which, in many ways, parallels the problem in UU churches:

On Broadway, ‘centering’ antiracism is delightful. Why is it so dreary in universities?

By John McWhorter

My 12-year-old daughter practically had to drag me into the musical “Six,” currently raging on Broadway, in which Henry VIII’s six wives all have their say about what happened to them. I wanted to see “Kimberly Akimbo.” I’m afraid I have lost touch with modern pop, and from a distance the whole “Six” premise sounded kind of unpromising to me (a singing Anne of Cleves?).

But after 15 minutes I was already itching to give it a standing ovation. Each wife comes out, in her way, as a proud, self-directed figure. For one, I love that my daughters will get this slice of history from the point of view (even if stylized) of the women, and even more that the women are cast as people of color(s), fostering a view of them as humans rather than racial types. In this, the whole show is a kind of lesson in antiracism, regardless of whether a viewer is consciously aware of it. In that way, it is a quintessentially modern work of musical theater. My daughters can sit through “A Man for All Seasons” some other time.

Beyond the lessons “Six” teaches, the performers manage some of the deftest work on Broadway I’ve ever seen. All six sing, act and move during almost the whole show at top-rate levels — I don’t even know how they remember all they have to do during the hour and a half — and the score does its job and then some: Every song in “Six” pops even if the genre isn’t your everyday soundscape.

So, “Six” can change your lens in an antiracist (and antisexist) way — while also turning you on to art, wonder, curiosity and excitement.

And this got me thinking about how much less vibrant, or even constructive, the antiracist mission feels at universities. Remember when, in 2020, the new idea was for them to “center” antiracism as their focal mission? One may have thought this was more trend than game plan, but it remains very much entrenched nationwide. According to the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a conservative law firm, first-year law students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison just this semester were required to attend a “re-orientation,” learning that explained that white people have a “fear of people of color and what would happen if they gained ‘control’” and will never be free of “racist conditioning.” A University of Notre Dame “inclusive teaching” resource from last year notes that “anti-racist teaching is important because it positions both instructors and students as agents of change towards a more just society,” emphasis theirs, with the implication that this mission has unquestionable primacy in a moral society. Statements that antiracism (and battling differentials in power more generally) are central to university departments’ missions are now almost common coin. I just participated in a discussion of antiracism as universities’ central focus at the University of Texas at Austin and am regularly asked to do so elsewhere.

And I think the persistence of this centering of antiracism at universities is kind of scary.

It may understandably seem, after these four years as well as the ones preceding, that for universities to maintain antiracism as the guiding star of their endeavors is as ordinary as steak and potatoes.

But in the spirit of John Stuart Mill advising us to revisit even assumptions that feel settled, imagine a nationwide call for all universities to “center” climate change as the singular focus of their mission. Or STEM subjects, historical awareness or civic awareness, each of these positioned as the key to serious engagement with the challenges of the future. We might imagine the university is to “center” artistic vision or skill in public expression, or even physical culture.

Note that all of these centerings would be about things most consider good, and even crucial, but the question would be why the university, as a general rule, should make any of those things the essence of what an education should consist of. Any university that did so would openly acknowledge that its choice was an unusual, and perhaps experimental, one.

One might propose that antiracism deserves pride of place as a kind of atonement for the sins of slavery and Jim Crow. But while getting beyond evils requires being aware of them, redressing past injustices — in fact, redressing just one past injustice — is not the basic mission of a university. The Scholastics of the Middle Ages “centered” education on Christianity, with the idea that education must explore or at least be ever consonant with the essences of natural law and eternal grace. Today we may view this focus as antique or unintentionally parochial. But it’s not just Christianity: We should question the idea that that any one issue, even one that feels urgent at this particular moment, must be regarded as the heart of education.

I found Bradley Cooper’s biopic of Leonard Bernstein, “Maestro,” incurious in a related way. To build an entire film around Bernstein’s being gay or bisexual — with “West Side Story,” his masterful teaching on television and even the radical politics that led to the famous Black Panthers fund-raiser in his home left out or barely perceptible — is an almost boorish reduction of a life, soul and talent. Cooper’s focus reflects neither how life felt to Bernstein (which I have heard about from friends of his) nor how he should be presented to those new to him.

Imagine if Cooper was directing “Oppenheimer” and J. Robert Oppenheimer happened to be gay, and the film had focused on how he and his wife dealt with that rather than, well, what actually made his life significant. This is what it looks like to me for universities to make antiracism their core mission. Antiracism is important, but for a whole world to revolve around it yields a distortion of what America is, and what actual humanity, be it Black or white, is or can be.

I am especially dismayed by the utter static joylessness of the endeavor. The primum mobile is glum accusation, with observations considered most important (to the extent that they lend themselves to this mission). A curiosity focused mainly on condemnation is not truly curiosity.

A long time ago at a university function, a Black scholar was telling me about his dissertation. It described how in the 19th century in one state, Black people with a certain disability were offered fewer resources than white ones with the same disability. It isn’t that such injustice should not be chronicled, but for one, it would be hard to say that what he had discovered was exactly surprising. And I couldn’t help noticing the guy’s gloom. He talked about this dissertation, the product of years’ work, in the tone one would harbor to talk about bedbugs having been discovered in his house.

But near me, another Black scholar was talking about her study of a (very white) operetta composer of roughly the same period, whose work indeed contains richnesses often overlooked. This scholar was elated, intrigued, driven — and although I was polite and made sure to hear the gloomy guy out, I couldn’t help feeling that the woman studying operetta was expanding her mind more, not to mention getting more out of life. (I should mention that her work also involved issues related to Black people.)

In the foisting of an antiracist agenda upon the life of the mind, I see increasingly constricted space for what knowledge truly is. Our universities are becoming temples of a kind of dutiful score-settling, where the motto is less something about truth in Latin than “j’accuse.” It’s a narrow, soul-crushing abbreviation of what education is supposed to be.

from http://prairiemary.blogspot.com/2011/11/httpwww.html

Wednesday, November 30, 2011
ABRAXAS: A Worthy Worship Experiment

http://www.uua.org/worship/theory/abraxanessay/ At this url is an essay written by a group of ministers and lay people who belonged to the Unitarian Universalist Association. Now it is part of the UUA website called “Worship Web,” which is particularly needed in this denomination because many of the small congregations are lay-lead and don’t have a trunk full of things to read or any real certainly about how to go about organizing worship. They may have come from places where it just wasn’t done by laypeople. Sometimes even as a professional and experienced minister, it really helps to be able to find something specific.

One of the main leaders of Abraxas was the Rev. Vern Barnet, now working at http://www.cres.org/pubs/abraxas.htm (Community Resource for Exploring Spirituality) though the formal organization may have tuckered out. It appears that even the indefatigable Vern is now “emeritus” and writing. Here's Vern: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTCBKUp42kM
I admired this organization and liked Vern, but in 1978 I didn’t quite know how to approach this group. Abraxas, named for an early god-idea, thought of itself as a monastic order in a joking way. They were very earnest and yet jocular, which I know doesn’t mean they weren’t serious, but it seemed like a cover for what I finally decided was -- on the part of some members -- simply arrogance, a wish to know more and be better and keep secrets. They declared themselves “spiritual” but seemed to define that as “interfaith” among the major religious institutions, including those that were Humanist. Vern still writes his religion column for the Kansas City Star. Here’s the most recent column:
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/29/3290633/gandhi-and-king-parallel-lives.html

Abraxans loved paraphernalia, vestments, smells and bells, secret names. They were very traditional, but would mix traditions within their prescribed ceremonies by using a reading from Hinduism, or a little ritual from an obscure corner of Christianity. It’s a style that came from the Sixties/Seventies comparative religion studies. Things can get a little confused with such an approach. I remember a time at the UUA general assembly, when some Buddhist priests had been invited to perform their liturgy. The audience, wishing to do the right thing, imitated the priests by standing and sitting or whatever, (paper fans were involved so the people used their programs) as they would have in a Catholic mass. This disconcerted the priests, who came from a tradition where the important people do the stuff while the congregants merely observe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhNtBWFbW0 This ten minute YouTube vid is a little service to view privately. The UU Chalice is there, with a double-circle for the Unitarian-Universalist overlap, the music is gospel and a well-known contemporary song. The sentiments are inclusive, so that the martyrs include Harvey Milk and many others, plus ringing spaces to indicate that there are more and more of them than we know. (I expect there was a gong bowl rather than a bell.) Many religions are mentioned. It’s hard to see how anyone could be offended. But to me, that’s sort of what’s wrong. It’s so generalized that it is -- forgive me RevWik (Erik Walker Wikstrom) -- bland. It’s over-familiar, very Sixties and Seventies.

But then, that’s probably who’s there in that congregation, what they know, what they have used as an operating principle for the last decades, and what helps them keep their bearings. If a person came along and started challenging the idea that love conquers all (which is not very hard to do) they’d be considered a trouble-maker and if there were too much trouble, love would pitch trouble out the door -- and that’s what they SHOULD do. As it says in Robert’s Rules of Order, a person who is not in sympathy with the purpose of the meeting may be excluded.

The Roman Catholic Eucharistic Mass is from the same liturgical patterns as Abraxas except for sticking to prescribed historical words that have been used for thousands of years. In the Sixties and Seventies they too “loosened up” by including guitar players with the organist, unscrewing the pews so they could be put in a circle, and using an English translation of the Latin mass. The result was uproar and residual resentment -- now reversal. Just a few days ago another new English mass was introduced and there was less emotion, but it was NOT comfortable for people who were used to the memorized words rolling out in a litany.

http://www.danielharper.org/resource13.htm#plan Here’s an interesting blog about what is called “Circle Worship” which kind of riffs off of Starhawk. The actual order of service is familiar, not far from what people kiddingly call a “hymn sandwich.” Daniel Harper is a Minister of Religious Education, which has a special concern for children and that shows up in this service. Again that same “nice” sort of “arty” context with a lot of earnest idealism. Familiar, pleasant. Quite like a concert attended with friends.

Such a context can be an oasis for some people but it does not exactly change lives. There’s not likely to be a spiritual breakthrough into other worlds or an epiphany of new understanding. Halfway between the Masonic Lodge and Bahai, but always in a familiar pattern laid down long ago, content wobbles between therapeutic counseling and post-WWII social action. The stream bed is wide in some ways, but the people attracted by tolerance and plurality are not likely to be cutting edge. On the other hand an amazing life-changing experience every Sunday would only wear everyone out. This is the problem of the whole United States “experiment,” as some call it: that it is meant to include everyone but doesn’t always (it DOES sometimes) or dare to power change even when the status quo is cooking the frog.

Abraxas was an admirable experiment in re-invigorating the medieval models by reaching out for world-wide words and practices, something like the New England Transcendentalists realizing what Buddhism and Hinduism had to offer and pulling it into their Christian thinking. But they are never going to kill roosters in church because Santeria might do that. They are never going to use Sun Lodge ordeals in which chest muscles are torn. And they are never going to throw up their hands and speak in tongues and fall on the floor. Worship styles are almost always class-based and so are denominations. Even the more radical experiments like those at UU Leadership School stay within UU culture, elastic as it can sometimes be.

I’m just the kind of bear who wants to go over the hill to see what I can see. Which is why I left the meeting.

Posted by Mary Strachan Scriver at 8:43 AM 
 

A Response from Vern Barnet--

1. Shallow syncretism is to be eschewed, and fiddling with the Mass must be done with care (some complain Vatican II failed to fiddle with the Tridentine form with skill). But Abraxas cannot be understood simply as a cafeteria liturgy. (Shall we accuse TS Eliot of syncretism because he integrates insights from Hinduism and Buddhism in his "Four Quartets," perhaps the most profound Christian poem of the 20th Century?) A scholar- and experienced-based understanding of various faiths may lead to a respectful informing of a liturgical effort which is anything but mere syncretism, though it must be noted that Christianity arises from Hebrew sources, Hellenistic practices themselves syncretistic, and pagan themes, and UUism may be the ultimate mess of various shallowly-understood spiritual and secular sources. (Some forms of Buddhism are not alone in expecting worshippers simply to observe -- forms of the Tridentine Mass and Christian Orthodox services have similar expectations for the worshippers; and in other faiths, types and degrees of participation vary greatly.) 

(BTW, I have received over a dozen honors from Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, and interfaith organizations, and many other awards, and was hired by The Kansas City Star to write a weekly column on various faiths; and I have taught world religions at the college and seminary level; so I have at least some acquaintance with various traditions which have sought to recognize my fairness in writing about them, 1994-2012. I was also one of four editors of a multi-faith handbook for health-care providers, published internationally. I have also taught worship for seminary students.)

2. A distinctive, unprecedented four-part liturgical format was developed, informed, surely, by past Christian patterns and by Von Ogdan Vogt's five-part worship plan. That 4-part sequence in turn arose from study of anthropological, sociological, psychological, pedagogical, literary, and theological examination. It was tried and found successful. Recognizing this contribution to worship theory and practice is an important part of evaluating what Abraxas did.
     That theory is described in detail in the Abraxas Worship Reader: From Von Odgen Vogt to the UUA Commission on Common Worship (1980) and its Supplement, which collected classic and recent book excerpts and papers as part of our study. Here a list of several ways of labeling the four stages or "acts" of the liturgy, sometimes called the "Pilgrimage Liturgy," the performance of which involves other considerations.
         1. Entering / Arriving / Opening / Initiation
           2. Joining / Connecting / Interaction
         3. Exploration / Adventure / Investigation
         4. Re-turning / Return / Integration
     This contrasts with the two-part Christian liturgical patterns of the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Table, and with Von Ogden Vogt's five parts of Vision, Humility, Vitality, Illumination, and Enlistment.
      In addition to the order of the single service, the order of the entire liturgical year demands full expression. Abraxas did some initial work on this, and others have suggested forms of a liturgical calendar.

#retreat_story

By Wayne Arnason

Matins, Eucharist. Vespers, Complinei These are words not otten heard in descriptions of Unitarian Universalist spiritual practices. Yet the services of worship called by these names form the benchmarks of each day of the retreats held by the Congregation of Abraxras.

The Congregation of Abraxas is a group of women and men. laity and clergy. within Unitarian Universalism who are seeking to understand the meaning of "ordered lite" in a liberal religious context. Drawn by the power of worship as a personal and a collective spiritual discipline. the members of the Congregation of Abraxas gather for at least three major retreats each year.

Many UUs have shared in one or more of the services at a General Assembly. However. these services were not created for that type of parish use. They are intended for repeated use in a monastic setting, and their meaning and power changes within that context.

What does a "monastic setting" and an “ordered life" mean for Unitarian Universalists? A look at the retreat at the House of the Redeemer. a retreat house in New York City. Oct. 22-26 offers some answers.

The eleven in retreat include "born-and-bred" UUs as well as the 'born-again" variety who grew up in Methodist, Baptist. Episcopal or Catholic churches.

Each retreat day follows a regular pattern which repeats itself in the rnoming. afternoon, and evening. The pattern includes worship. a meal. personal free time. spiritual exercises, program or business discussions, recreation, and a time period whidh might include work, alone time, or social time depending on the hour of the day.

The day begins with the Matins, or moming service. written to celebrate the [dawn with a focus on the natural world.]

Before the noon meal, the Abraxan Eucharist, with its themes of community
and justice, is celebrated. 

As evening comes, the vespers service invoking re?ections on our personal and collective history is said.

The last service of the day, Compline, stands outside the three-part retreat pattern. for it begins a different part of the day. Compline's theme is psyche and inner life, and following the service the participants in the retreat keep silence until the first words of Matins are spoken in the morning.

Meals are usually taken with some form of table discipline, which might be anything from directed conversation to refectory reading to silence.

Not all of an Abraxan retreat is involved with discipline, however. People who have come to know the Abraxan style have grown accustomed to a

paradoxical sense of humor which accompanies this serious interest in spiritual life. lt is usual for one block of time during the retreat to be devoted to a group excursion. which this year involved a walk through Central Park ablaze with tall foliage and an aftemoon at the Museum of Natural History.

Whenever possible, the retreat schedule on a Sunday involves sharing a service with a local UU congregation.

The highlight of the fall retreat this year was the ordering ceremony at which four new members of the order were welcomed. ln the year past these four "postulants“ had completed a process of work, study, and personal discipline leading up to joining the order.

The vows of the Congregation of Abraxas have drawn some inspiration from the Rule of St. Benedict in spirit. but not in letter. Rather than chastity, poverty, and obedience, ordncd members of Abraxas vow equity, utility. and collegiality with other members of the order and in their attitudes towards the world. ln the past two years the order has grown from seven to thirteen ordered members and several postulants still moving through the process leading to ordering.

The next retreat will be in February in the Chicago area. Announcements will be mailed to all who are on the Friends or the General Member mailing list. or further information may be obtained from the Scribe of the Order at P.O. Box 4165, Overland Park, KS 66204.

PHOTO  Vespers -- 
Ordered members of Abraxas Grace Ulp, David Macmillan and Wayne Arnason work on the draft for vespers, Writlng in collegial style.

Religious publishing houses, congregtions, and non-profits are welcome to excerpt and reprint Abraxan material without charge from this site and from our print publications by acknowledging the source.

Citation may be made by adapting and abbreviating the following:

[Name of specific publication], Congregation of Abraxas, a Unitarian Universalist Liturgical and Missionary Order (fl. 1975-1985), city of publication, copyright date/date of publication, page(s) or url]. Used with permission.

     NOTE that all Abaxan services were officially published as trials, so an excerpt from the Matins should be cited as "Trial Matins." This is an important point because Abraxans insisted on a process of continuing revision as essential to liturgical integrity -- publication otherwise misrepresents the intent and commitment by the Abraxans.

Example of unshortened citation: "Trial Matins According to the Usage of the Congregation of Abraxas," a Unitarian Universalist Liturgical and Missionary Order (fl. 1975-1985), New York,  revised 1979, page 2. Used with permission. 

A copy of the work in which the cited material appears should be filed with

Abraxas Custodian
Box 45414
Kansas City, MO 64171

At this url is an essay written by a group of ministers and lay people who belonged to the Unitarian Universalist Association. Now it is part of the UUA website called “Worship Web,” which is particularly needed in this denomination because many of the small congregations are lay-lead and don’t have a trunk full of things to read or any real certainly about how to go about organizing worship. They may have come from places where it just wasn’t done by laypeople. Sometimes even as a professional and experienced minister, it really helps to be able to find something specific.

One of the main leaders of Abraxas was the Rev. Vern Barnet, now working at http://www.cres.org/pubs/abraxas.htm (Community Resource for Exploring Spirituality) though the formal organization may have tuckered out. It appears that even the indefatigable Vern is now “emeritus” and writing. Here's Vern:     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTCBKUp42kM

I admired this organization and liked Vern, but in 1978 I didn’t quite know how to approach this group. Abraxas, named for an early god-idea, thought of itself as a monastic order in a joking way. They were very earnest and yet jocular, which I know doesn’t mean they weren’t serious, but it seemed like a cover for what I finally decided was -- on the part of some members -- simply arrogance, a wish to know more and be better and keep secrets. They declared themselves “spiritual” but seemed to define that as “interfaith” among the major religious institutions, including those that were Humanist. Vern still writes his religion column for the Kansas City Star. Here’s the most recent column:
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/29/3290633/gandhi-and-king-parallel-lives.html

Abraxans loved paraphernalia, vestments, smells and bells, secret names. They were very traditional, but would mix traditions within their prescribed ceremonies by using a reading from Hinduism, or a little ritual from an obscure corner of Christianity. It’s a style that came from the Sixties/Seventies comparative religion studies. Things can get a little confused with such an approach. I remember a time at the UUA general assembly, when some Buddhist priests had been invited to perform their liturgy. The audience, wishing to do the right thing, imitated the priests by standing and sitting or whatever, (paper fans were involved so the people used their programs) as they would have in a Catholic mass. 

This disconcerted the priests, who came from a tradition where the important people do the stuff while the congregants merely observe.

Abraxas

by Grace Ulp

Abraxas, called the “Congregation of Abraxas” by the UUA, was a group of ministers and lay people interested in the form, art, and experience of worship. In size, small (never more than 40 financial supporters); in clout, less than they hoped.

They gathered at a time when the UUA was growing its membership through Fellowships, mostly lay-led, with in some cases a lack of experience in providing worship services for their members. The famous “hymn sandwich” was a problem for seekers of worship: fill out an hour with a 50 minute lecture on anything between the atom bomb and the philosophy of God Is Dead, plus a hymn before and after.

The group started out publishing a “Worship Reader”: essays in worship theory from Von Ogden Vogt to the UUA Commission on Common Worship. They held discussions at the UUA General Assemblies, and provided retreats for those interested after the Assembly closed.

A group on the west coast (Abraxas West) published “Rite of Religion”: a booklet about the experience of worship, and “Book of Hours,” material for the worship services at retreats. They met frequently to hold worship services in the Starr King Worship yurt or in the UUCB Fireside Room. There also were weekend retreats—one at Zen Center’s Green Gulch Farm, and another in working meditation under the leadership of Blanche and Lou Hartman, Zen priests. Occasionally a worship service is still held, courtesy of one of our “Abraxans.”

https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/adults/practice/workshop3/find-out-more

The Congregation of Abraxas Worship Reader—includes several writings by Unitarian Universalist ministers.  

http://www.wizduum.net/forum/congregation-abraxas

Just wanted to let people know that the website for the Congregation of Abraxas is back online. Yay! Very Happy

http://www.congregationofabraxas.org/

For those of you who are unfamiliar with them, the Congregation of Abraxas was a UU semi-monastic order that was formed in the 1970's during the height of the dominance of secular humanism on UU. A few people, dissatisfied with the lack of worship opportunities, got together to create uniquely UU liturgies and other aspects of worship. The UU hymnal that we use right now came out of their work. So if for no other reason we owe them a debt of gratitude. 

https://caelesti.livejournal.com/40557.html
28 August 2009 @ 12:54 pm
Congregation of Abraxas  

I have a book called "Earth Prayers From Around the World, 366 Prayers, Poems & Invocations for Honoring the Earth"<input ... ></input><input ... > It contains some prayers that I really like from a group called the Congregation of Abraxas. I was curious who they were so I Googled them.
It turns out that they were a Unitarian semi-monastic order in the that formed 1970s and 80s for the purpose of developing liturgy and deepening spiritual practice. This was at the height of the influence of secular humanism in the UUA. Their liturgy drew a lot from Benedictine Catholic & Buddhist sources. Apparently they published a Book of Hours in 1985, probably a pretty limited run- I can't find it. I'm going to ask around at Unity especially the Library Team to see if I can find out more about them. I think the UUs could still really use a group like that!

On a side note, I also wondered about the name "Abraxas" It sounded to me to be vaguely Greek and ceremonial magicky- I was kind of right it goes back to Gnosticism- the history of it is rather complex!
 
Tags: uu

https://friendsofsilence.net/quote/author/congregation-abraxas

Congregation of Abraxas
At this time of thanksgiving
Congregation of Abraxas | November 1998 (Vol XI, No. 10)

Eternal spirit of Justice and Love,
At this time of thanksgiving we would be aware
of our dependence on the earth and
on the sustaining presence of other human beings.
both living and gone before us.
As we partake of bread and wine,
may we remember that there are many
for whom sufficient bread is a luxury, or
for whom wine, when attainable,
is only an escape.
Let our thanksgiving for Life's bounty
include a commitment to changing the world,
that those who are now hungry may be filled,
and those without hope may be given courage.
~ The Book of Hours (1985)

http://celestiallands.org/wayside/?p=790

There is a history of this… sortof.  In the 1940’s and 50’s, a group of Universalist Ministers formed a group that was patterned on a “fraters” style religious order, known as the Humiliati.  They focused on theological depth and on revitalizing the Universalist Church of America.  There also was another group, known as the Congregation of Abraxas, which formed in 1975 as a group of both clergy and lay UU’s focused on revitalizing worship within our tradition.  I have had the honor and privilege to have met with and spoken with some of the last members of each of these groups about their experiences, for which I am deeply grateful.  

https://parzifal.wordpress.com/2006/11/11/congregation-of-abraxas/

In the 70/80’s I was a member of the Congregation of Abraxas–many worship items were produced in print form and many workshops were presented.  I have gathered a very few ideas from the Worship Reader and they are presented here for your  exploration.  This was one of the few Liturgical Revivals in the UU church; another was the work of the Humiliati (primarily a Universalist liturgical movement).  Below is a collection of CoAbraxas ideas.

The texts below originally appeared in the Congregation of Abraxas Worship Reader, pp. 53-76.

May be printed for personal use only—authors retain their respective copyrights.

etc

http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n86-78/

http://www.softconference.com/storefront/PDF/250624.pdf

https://www.uuma.org/blogpost/569858/168584/In-Memory-of----
Frederick-E-Gillis-1940-2013

http://uufeaston.org/download/Sermons/Sermons
%20-%20Gabrielle%20Parks/Parks%20-%20Communion%20for%20UUs.doc

https://uurainbowhistory.net/personal-memories-of-lgbtq-groundbreakers-in-the-uua/

https://www.boyinthebands.com/archives/do-unitarians-have-a-liturgy/

https://theisticsatanism.wikia.org/wiki/Abraxas

https://cse.google.com/cse?q=
abrax&op=Search&cx=009416300272322837553%3Aw9mj9lz2c4u

https://www.amazon.com/Rite-Religion-Mark-Belletini/dp/B00641RUDY

http://pagantheologies.pbworks.com/w/page/112082326/Worship

https://uudb.org/articles/vonogdenvogt.html

https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.uuma.org/resource/collection/
642878F9-E6F5-4B16-83E1-292B097B20F9/UUMANews2009.9.Sept.pdf