On Becoming a Protestant

In a Glasgow pub an American returning from the urinal through a narrow passage was accosted by two locals and backed up against the wall. “Are ye a Protestant or ye Catholic?” he was asked.

“I'm an agnostic,” the American said.

“That's all well and good man,”one of the locals answered, “but are ye a Catholic agnostic or a Protestant agnostic?”


I was baptized at St. Robert Bellarimine Catholic Church. I attended St. Robert Bellarmine Grammar School, St. Francis of Asissi High School, and two years at Loyola University of Los Angeles. Most of my life I've identified myself as Irish Catholic, explaining that it wasn't so much a religion as a political statement.

In my 20's I ceased to believe in the divinity of Jesus and by the time I was thirty I was pretty much an agnostic. I did and continue to believe in ritual and tradition and the connection we make through ritual with what is beyond our understanding. I sent my sons to Catholic schools, more because the alternative in the urban neighborhood we lived in was unacceptable than from any need to make them Catholics, but I did want them be exposed to a world view that was more about service than materialism. I became an active member of the local parish. I was OK as long as we didn't talk about theology and the stories I heard from the pulpit were so familiar they seemed like old friends to be accepted, not necessarily believed, but not openly questioned.

And then I got divorced. There's not much room for a divorced man with an active social life in the Catholic Church. I like church, I like the community of it. At the same time I got sober through a 12 Step Program. While my atheism/agnosticism was becoming more refined I experienced the miracle of recovery and the blessing of grace. For awhile I attended Episcopalian services. As I got more deeply involved it was obvious that Episcopalians, Christians, believe in Jesus Christ and while it didn't seem to be required it did make me feel out of step.

One day a Jewish girlfriend asked me to explain the Trinity.. I wasn't much of a believer but I had always hung on to the idea that Catholicism and Christianity was a reasonable way to view the world, that it made sense, just not to me. As I tried to explain the Trinity, the reasonableness of it vanished, like the Psych 101 picture of the cups and the faces, once I tried to explain it, the Trinity went away. It was the moment that my Christian viewpoint vanished.

My alienation from Catholicism was only confirmed when John Paul II canonized St. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the founder of Opus Dei.

When I went to Mt. Diablo State Park, I realized I was going to be alone in a community where I didn't know anyone. I was reading Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone which had me thinking about connecting with community in a way beyond what AA offered, I searched around having some idea that Unitarians might be interesting. Before that my only experience with Unitarians was going to 12 step meetings in a Unitarian Church in Santa Monica and reading the posters and bulletin boards in the room we used.

I attended a service of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Walnut Creek. I was amazed, it was the first church I had ever attended that didn't care about belief or dogma and didn't require I accept some sort of defined metaphysics. I could openly talk about my experience and beliefs, talk about the questions, not the answers. I was among similar minded people in an open and free thinking church.

When Suzette and I first began seeing each other she was searching for a church she might attend. She was brought up Catholic and attended Catholic school just as I had. I took her to a Unitarian Universalist Church and I was pleased when she took to it immediately. When Suzette and I left Angel Island we looked for a Unitarian Church we could attend. When we went to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, transplanted from Berkeley to Kensington in 1961, we found a home. Within the year we became members.

We quickly became involved with the church. Our daughter Paloma enjoyed the pre-school and we enjoyed the social connections . Bill and Barbara Hamilton-Holway were the co-ministers. They were warm, loving, and interesting people. Laura, the family minister, was wonderful.

One day early on at dinner Paloma held up her hands making two 'U's with her thumb and index fingers and said “U, U for Unitarian Universalist.” I thought, oh my god, she's being propagandized and then I realized, no that was a big reason we joined a Church. Since then she's learned the principles, been through a course of early childhood sex education, performed in various plays and skits and played the harp for a Vesper Service. She knows we're not Christians as some of her evangelizing classmates have been, not followers of Jesus or Mohamed. As we discussed it she suggested instead that we're followers of Martin Luther King Jr. Close enough, I thought.

I was asked to join the religious education group, Sunday School. I read to the pre-school group Paloma was in and enjoyed it. Slowly I began to admit I am a Sunday School teacher, which sounds incredibly Protestant to me. I now teach kindergarten and will stay with that age group for awhile. I know it's shallow but just the sound of these things grates on my Catholic soul. Anyone who knows Unitarians knows that we number among us a significant number of ex-Catholics, along with Jews, atheists, and others who would never describe themselves as Protestants but . . .
The history and tradition of the Unitarians and Universalists is a direct line from the dissenters in the Reformation. The tradition of a unified godhead goes back to the third century C.E. and there have been unitarians since then, many burned at the stake and in the Reformation they were burned by both Protestant and Catholic Trinitarians. However the real roots of today's Unitarianism go back to the end of the 18^th and beginning of the 19^th century and Chritisan rationalists like J.B. Priestley. Charles Darwin had Unitarian connections. Early in the 19^th century Harvard Divinity School began to have a Unitarian bent to it.

Like the Congregationalist, descendants of the Puritans, the Unitarians were from upper crust Boston.  In the 19^th century it was said of the Unitarians, “They believe in the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the neighborhood of Boston.” In Ireland the Unitarians, there is a congregation in Dublin and one in Cork, are direct descendants of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterians, similar to our descent from the Puritans. The evolution of religion seems to naturally flow to a rationalist acceptance of the indefinable divine and awe at the miracle of the universe and our inter-connectedness in it. Or something like that. The Unitarians of today have a direct ancestry to the opening of minds in the Reformation through the Age of Enlightenment. It is a Protestant heritage, not a Catholic one.

The Irish website says, “Our ethos is ‘faith guided by reason and conscience’ and we advocate liberal and tolerant Christianity.” I think they're saying they're Protestants though I'm sure some of their congregants aren't and among us UU's that's OK.

In Unitarian Universalist congregations there are Catholics, Jews and Buddhists and there are Christians. It varies in the United States. Our church in Berkeley and many like us don't see ourselves as Christian. There's a joke about Unitarians that the only time you hear the name of Jesus in a Unitarian Church is when the janitor falls down the basement steps. When a minister talks too much about the Bible or Jesus in churches like ours some people complain. I don't complain but I do cringe.

However the UUCB service is the traditional non-conforming Protestant liturgy, hymns, preaching from the pulpit and more hymns. Music is also an important element of our services. Lately the services last an hour and a half, something else some of us complain about. Socializing afterwards can be another hour or two. And I attend board meetings, talks, family events, trainings, and more. Suzette and I probably go to the church at least once or twice a week other than Sunday. All that time spent at church makes me feel much more Protestant than Catholic. As a Catholic I went to a 45 minute mass on Sunday and school events. No Sunday school and little socializing at church. I feel like an Evangelical who goes to church most of Sunday, Bible study one night a week, church dinners another night and maybe something else.

When I first started going to the UU church I told my park mates that I attended the Church of the God Who Isn't. I didn't want anyone to think I was a “Christian,” one of those evangelicals who thinks everyone but they are going to hell. But when I became a Sunday School teacher I thought it was time that I own up to what I've become. So I told people I taught Sunday School without qualifying it, me and Jimmy Carter, not bad company. I even put it on my resume when asked about my teaching experience. The formerly welcoming principle at the school I wanted to volunteer at wouldn't return my phone calls. I suspect she thought I was one of those Christian fundamentalists. I did get a job at Coronado Elementary School. I believe even fundamentalists have a right to teach in our schools, I just don't happen to be one, but I am a Sunday School teacher.

So more and more I tell people I attend church, a Unitarian Universalist church and less and less do I explain it. Let them think what they will.

But I feel very far removed from my Catholic roots. I surprised myself when I followed the election of the Pope so closely and I still have strong opinions about the new Pope and how far he should go. But I am no longer Catholic; I am a Unitarian. Unitarian Universalism has a Protestant heritage and it does not feel or act Catholic in any way.

At Episcopal churches I felt like a dissenting Catholic. As an Irish Catholic, Catholicism wasn't just a religion, it was a connection with my Irish heritage, Irish independence, and Irish specialness, even here in the United States. My Irish bias, bigotry maybe, is deeply rooted. When I meet someone who claims to be Irish, reflexively I think if you weren't raised Catholic how can you be Irish. The truth of it is that just having an Irish name or some Irish ancestor doesn't make a person Irish. It's the culture, the traditions and the shared history. It doesn't have to be Irish Catholic but it most often is, the shared history of nuns and St. Mary Queen of the Martyrs school. The Catholic church, the local parish with it's Irish pastor, was the keeper of our culture, our tie with the Emerald Isle.

That world is gone. There are no Irish pastors left, not a bad thing. The local parish instead of being a bridge to the larger world and at the same time protection against it has become an alien place to me. The progressive church of my youth has become the conservative church of today. While my own world has grown in acceptance and tolerance the Catholic Church has regressed. Irish Catholics are as likely to be Republicans as Democrats. While I take pride in Ted Kennedy, there's no pride in Paul Ryan.

In Ireland I met Irish who were Church of Ireland, the Anglican Irish Church, Unitarian, and Protestant, all of whom were at least as Irish and patriotiotic as I am. One doesn't have to be Catholic to be Irish and I can convert to a Protestant Intellectual tradition that runs through Ireland as well. But it feels like I've given up something for my conversion. Nonetheless I'm proud to be a Unitarian.

Like the Commitments in Roddy Doyle's novel of the same name, I'm Unitarian (almost Protestant) and I'm proud.

And if confronted in a Glasgow pub I might just dodge the bullet and tell them I'm a Celtic fan, the Irish Nationalist Football Club in Glasgow, and an Irish Unitarian.
















Notes

The UUs as we call ourselves share the 7 principles which are the basis of our community:

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

 The Unitarians and the Universalists merged in 1961. It's easiest to simply say Unitarian but in fact we are Unitarian Universalists. An early crack in my Catholic faith occurred when I heard the Episcopalian Bishop Pike of San Francisco preach a Universalist message.

 Feeling my nostalgia for the Catholic Mass I sometimes sneak off to an Epsicopalian church for a mass. One time in Richmond I went to the local Episcopal Church. The church in Richmond is named Holy Trinity. I felt like a Unitarian heretic. Now I go to Iglesia Santiago in Oakland, a less inflammatory named Epsicopal church. Of course, both of these Episcopal churches are well attended by a lot of ex-Catholics. There are a lot of us.

Unitarian beliefs have evolved a long way from just asserting that there is only one God. The joke is that in the 1990's the Unitarians updated their belief from: There is only one God, to there is only one god more or less.