Christ for Unitarian Universalists: A New Dialogue with Traditional Christianity

by Scotty McLennan

Overview

The retired dean for religious life at Stanford Universitypresents this engaging and thoughtful inquiry into Christianity for Unitarian Universalists and other spiritual seekers—including skeptics, non-religious people, liberal Christians, and those who consider themselves “spiritual but not religious.”

With his customary warmth and hospitality, Scotty McLennan poses and responds to a series of provocative questions. They address Jesus as historical figure and Jesus as the present Christ; they explore the reality and meaning of the Christmas and Easter stories, the Trinity, Christ’s divinity, miracles, salvation, religious pluralism and exclusivism, and more.

Rather than proselytize, Christ for Unitarian Universalists seeks to stimulate dialogue about Jesus Christ, whether or not we find him central to our faith life. It aims to build bridges and cross the great cultural gulfs in our society. It addresses frank questions with integrity and intellectual honesty. Yet it also presents a sincere and genuine sense of love as embodied in Jesus Christ that is so heartfelt, so unconditional, and so revolutionary it will take your breath away.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558967724
Publisher:	Unitarian Universalist Association
Publication date:	05/01/2016
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Scotty McLennan is a Unitarian Universalist minister, lawyer, and educator, currently teaching ethics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He was the UniversityChaplain at Tufts for sixteen years and Dean for Religious Life at Stanford for fourteen years. He is the author of Finding Your Religion and Jesus Was a Liberal, and co-author of Church on Sunday, Work on Monday.

Read an Excerpt

I hope Jesus Christ can be seen as a genuine inspiration for us as Unitarian Universalists, even though the vast majority of us don’t identify as Christians. I know that many of us have been badly burned by Christianity and see it as a deeply regressive force in society. Rather than wanting nothing to do with it, though, we can find a lot in Jesus Christ and the tradition that’s grown up around him, which can be profoundly encouraging, sustaining, and life changing. I hope that, by having presented a set of provocative questions that we naturally ask about Christ and Christianity, and by fully engaging with those questions, I have provided some useful and generative answers. It’s been my aim to provide a fresh, twenty-first century appreciation of Christ that is compelling and personally engaging for us as Unitarian Universalists.

As you have seen, I don’t believe it’s enough to talk about Jesus as a great teacher and prophet of an earlier era, a historical figure whom we can look back to as model and exemplar. He became and remains the living Christ for billions of people. Christ means “the anointed one,” who is meant to deliver us, and who still delivers us, to a radically different order and way of being. The pre-Easter Jesus is the historical Jesus who walked and taught and healed in ancient Israel. The post-Easter Jesus, the Christ, is the one whom his disciples experienced as alive and active again, changing people and their communities both in the present and for the future. The Christian Church has been the primary locus of that shared experience of the living Christ, but not the only one. Christ has lived in the hearts and minds and actions of artists and poets, social reformers and innovators, healers and peacemakers, and countless others who were never part of the Church. Christ is available to Unitarian Universalists too as animating force, as comrade, as personally and socially renewing energy in the here and now—and more.

I have not spoken of Jesus Christ as the supernatural, or as the bloody atoner for the sins of humankind, or as the one and only way to spiritual truth. I believe we can read the New Testament and two thousand years of Christian experience as testifying to embodied values of rationality, equality, tolerance, freedom, and respect. Through Jesus Christ we can come to see clearly the inherent worth and dignity of every person, the role of justice and compassion in human relations, the goal of world community, and many other values affirmed by our Unitarian Universalist faith. Through Jesus Christ we can come to direct experience of transcending mystery and won-der, openness to the forces that create and uphold life, love for God and neighbor, and much more that enriches and ennobles our faith.

Table of Contents

Foreword Harvey Cox ix

Introduction xiii

1 What does it mean for Unitarian Universalists to talk about the living Christ? 1

2 Who was and is Jesus, really? 15

3 The birth story: Why put Christ in Christmas? 31

4 What's in the Trinity for us as Unitarians? 51

5 What significance can we find in crucifixion? 67

6 What could Christ's resurrection mean to Unitarian Universalists? 83

7 What can we do with Jesus Christ's miracles? 101

8 What does it mean to be saved? (And is salvation universal?) 109

9 How can we deal with Jesus Christ as the way, truth, and life? 127

10 What's really left of Christianity in the face of Unitarian Universalist rationality and doubt? 145

11 Could Unitarian Universalists adopt Martin Luther King Jr.'s understanding of Christ? 155

12 How can Christ help us in our social justice efforts? 163

13 How might we talk to evangelical Christians about Christ? 181

14 What can we say to people of other religions (or none) about Christ? 199

Conclusion 221

Sources of Epigraphs 225

Notes 227

Index 261

Editorial Reviews

Anyone interested in the swiftly moving changes within and among religions today, and in the way they shape and are shaped by social and political events, needs to read this book. McLennan has been around the block more than once and he knows whereof he speaks.” —Harvey Cox, author of The Future of Faith and How to Read the Bible

“If all Scotty McLennan offered in Christ for Unitarian Universalists was his superb chapter on what we know about the historical Jesus, I would still call it required reading for Unitarian Universalists. Yet he gives both those who claim a Christian identity within Unitarian Universalism and those who wouldn’t dream of doing so, a lot more. Even Christians outside of Unitarian Universalism will find in these pages a refreshing perspective on their faith. I cannot recommend Rev. McLennan’s book highly enough.” —Rev. Erik Walker Wikstrom, author of Teacher, Guide, Companion: Rediscovering Jesus in a Secular World

“Scotty McLennan has produced a profoundly personal, theologically deep exploration of key Christian concepts and how they have been used in service to liberal values by Unitarian Universalists, and by respected theologians ranging from the writers of the canonical epistles to Marcus Borg to Martin Luther King Jr. While it is not intended to convert Unitarian Universalists to UU Christianity, it may well open some doors to spiritual exploration and growth that had previously been impenetrable to people who thought Jesus or Christianity had nothing to offer them. This book offers a wonderful opportunity for Unitarian Universalists to open our own internal dialogue about Christianity and its dynamic, living place in our tradition.” —Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson, co-author of Called to Community: New Directions in Unitarian Universalist Ministry

“Having left Christian orthodoxy, many Unitarian Universalists today hold hurt-filled stereotypes about Christianity. Unchallenged, this cuts many of us off from needed spiritual healing, from deeper dialogue and interfaith collaboration. Even those of us who think we know the heart of those trying to embody the spirit of the living Christ will gain much from this gracefully written, profound apologetic. I know I did. Dare yourself and your atheist friends to read and discuss this book!” —Rev. Dr. John Buehrens, author of Conflagration: How the Transcendentalists Sparked the American Struggle for Racial, Gender, and Social Justice

“Scotty McLennan’s Christ for Unitarian Universalists confronts head-on the doubt and fears that Unitarian Universalists have had about Christianity and re-interprets them through the lens of our liberal religious faith. Written for both Christian and non-Christian Unitarian Universalists, this book is a goldmine of history, theology, and wisdom from his lived experience as college chaplain, Unitarian Universalist minister, and practicing Christian.” —Rev. Kathleen C. Rolenz, editor of Christian Voices in Unitarian Universalism

“As a Unitarian Universalist and a Christian, as a sceptic and a believer, Scotty McLennan has brought together his disparate worlds in a remarkable book. He presents us with thoughtful, serious, and compassionate Christians who live their faith—and question it. His clear, sensible writing and irenic intelligence make this a must for any Unitarian Universalist interested in moving beyond caricatures to real people, however different from most of us.” —Rev. Carl Scovel, author of Never Far from Home: Stories from the Radio Pulpit

From the Publisher