I've been thinking a lot about issues around prison and prisoners lately. The USA has the largest number of executions. Not per capita; total. Not even China, with its billion+ population and terrible human rights record can top America. Headlines were made by the recently released statistic that 1 out of 100 Americans are behind bars made headlines recently. Mumia Abu-Jamal may finally get the trial he deserves. In retrospect his case makes recent statistics and phenomena like Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and illegal immigrant detention centers seem less surprising.

All of this correlates with something that I've discovered about my Universalist predecessors. It has been suggested that a desire to help those in prison was a natural outcome of not believing in eternal punishment. Realizing there was no afterlife hell, they worked to create a hell-less present life. Despite their lack of belief in any afterlife, the freethought movements' cross-over with Universalism has not come as a surprise to me. Imprisonment of the mind or body is an insult to the soul. The trend of Universalist participation in the prison reform movement and ministering to prisoners (while simultaneously being accused of encouraging sinfulness) takes up a significant section of my paper. What is not mentioned in the paper is that I am personally impressed with the dedication of Universalists throughout history.

It took me until a few nights ago to put two and two together. I attended a talk by Angela Davis, best known for her radical activism and participation in the Black Panther and Communist Parties. Davis is now a professor of history of consciousness at UC Santa Cruz and focusing on, among other topics, the phenomenon of prisons. She reiterated the above statistics and elaborated upon the larger societal context, including the over-representation of black men and transexuals in the prison system and the complicy of the capitalist system.
There was an especially moving scene during the Q&A session after the talk. A professor who I'd never seen before told Dr. Davis that she inspired her as a young woman in Africa.

All of this has very practical ramifications. All the speculating on the past I've been doing this year... I think it's time to start speculating about the future.

Rarely. Sometimes I step back and wonder if I have a compulsion to be opinionated.

For this entire school year I've been working on my bachelor's thesis. The topic I've been studying is the Universalist Church. Initially, the central doctrine that distinguished Universalists from other Protestants was the rejection of the concept of eternal punishment in the afterlife, or 'universal salvation'. After time the mainline denominations toned down their fire and brimstone rhetoric and Universalists searched for something else to unite them and keep their denomination solvent. Frankly, they failed in this endeavor. Paradoxically, though, the Universalist message grew as the denomination shrank. Finally in 1961 the Universalist Church of America merged with the American Unitarian Association to form the Unitarian Universalist Association.

Chances are if you're a member of the Gaia community you probably have at least passing familiarity with Unitarian Universalism, though many people (members and non-members alike) sorten it to "Unitarian". To those concerned with the Universalist heritage, this is just one of many manifestations of the dominance that the Unitarian side at the expense of the Universalist. Though there has been a great deal of crossover between the two over the centuries, I argue that Universalism has offered a unique and important message thoughout its existence.

One comparison I've run across frequently in my research is that the Unitarian tradition is more head-centered and the Universalist more heart-centered. From my experience it is definately the case that Unitarians focus more on intellective spiritual pursuits. Today's sermon at my local Unitarian church was on Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, unbeknownst to most of his contemporaries and probably most people even today, rejected the idea of the Trinity, though he never belonged to a Unitarian church. Jefferson was a bit more open about his Deist beliefs. Deism was a popular religious movement during the Enlightenment. It was essentially a rationalistic theism that took inspiration from traditional pre-Enlightenment ideas of God, but stripped the idea of God of all irrational and supernatural connotations. Nowadays Deism is all but a relic of the Eighteenth Century. I think this is rather unsurprising, given the narrow focus of the movement. Though the theology of the Deists was far superior to the traditional Christian theology, the movement offered no other components of the religious experience than theology.

Both Unitarianism and Universalism were greatly influenced by the Enlightenment. With the exception of some Jewish and Christian groups, Unitarian Universalism seems to be the only major institutionalized religious movement in the United States that takes rationality seriously. The difference I perceive between Unitarianism and Universalism is that the former seems wedded to the Enlightenment paradigm, while the latter was greatly informed by the Enlightenment but not limited by it. Universalism offered a religion that integrated rationalism and mysticism, intellect and experience, mind and body. It is because of this valuable universal and integral approach that I have come to identify so strongly with Universalism. For this same reason I worry that the Universalist tradition may die out if something is not done. Discussion of universal salvation is being revived in Christian circles, but it is of a distinctly different flavor that of the Universalist Church. Conversely, the Unitarian Universalist Association seems to be constantly detaching itself from theological involvement of any sort. Nevertheless, I notice the spirit of Universalism persists within the UUA, even if it does not recieve this recognition.

One of the explanations of the decline of Universalism is that it focused on spreading its message at the expense of creating institutions to sustain itself. It seems the opposite trend is at work in the UUA, possibly part of the Unitarian influence; the institution is focused on at the expense of effective propogation of the UU message. Unitarian Universalism seems to be slowly dis-integrating.

One of the songs in our hymn book that speaks to my heart is a Channukah song, the chorus of which runs, "Don't let the light go out/ it's been shining for so many years/ don't let the light go out/ let it shine through our joys and our tears" In this post-modern age there is plenty of religious dead wood that could be used to grow the flame of Universalism. Whether it remains a small flicker because of stifiling institution or the unreasoning winds of contemporary culture, I will not venture to guess at this point. But I pledge to tend that fire until it once again becomes the blazing beacon of hope deserving of the name "Universalism".