Kenneth Patton: Universalist Visionary

A sermon by the Rev. Daniel Charles Davis

for the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Winston-Salem

August 28, 2005

In the past few weeks I have taken you through the history of Universalism. I started with Benjamin Rush, who emphasized a loving God and individual freedom during the Revolutionary War; moved on to Adin Ballou, who tried to establish the peaceable kingdom here on earth before the Civil War; thence to Clara Barton, who responded to that war by establishing the Red Cross and extending compassion to all; and last week to Olympia Brown, the first female minister, who worked from the Civil War, past the first World War for the right of women to vote, and who in her last sermon encouraged her listeners to trust the results of science more than the Bible as pointing to divine truth.

Universalism faced decline in the early 20th century. Mainline Christian churches stopped emphasizing hellfire, thus diminishing Universalists’ unique stand on salvation. So they were losing members to more conservative religions.

They were also losing members to more liberal thinkers. In 1933 the Humanist Manifesto was written – primarily by a Unitarian. It suggested a religion without God that focused on human potential. Clinton Lee Scott was the only Universalist to sign it, though two of the Unitarian ministers who signed it had joint standing with Universalists as well.

Most Universalists resisted humanism, though in their 1935 Statement of Faith, “The Bible was not mentioned and God was defined in impersonal terms – as ‘eternal and all conquering Love.’” By 1935, if Universalism had not yet fully departed from Christianity, it had opened the door to a much broader understanding of its mission.” [1]

By 1947 Clinton Lee Scott had become the head of the Massachusetts Universalist Convention. He wanted to push Universalism in the direction of being a universal religion, not just a dying branch of Christianity.

Boston had no Universalist church, so he established the Charles Street Meeting House and in 1949 nominated Kenneth Patton as its minister. Patton was serving the Unitarian church in Madison, Wisconsin, at the time. Instead of an altar, the church had a bookshelf containing the scriptures of the world. Behind the bookcase was a mural of a spiral galaxy. The church itself was not much of a success. Its membership never reached more than 55 during Patton’s 15 years there. After he left in 1964, the congregation lasted only six more years.

Part of the problem was Patton himself. He did not have a pastoral presence or much tolerance for those who disagreed with him. His skills were not in building community. What he did have was a way with words. He established a printing press at the meeting house and distributed his words across the denomination.

Patton moved to the to a church in Ridgewood, New Jersey, a pastorate that allowed him to further develop his strength as a writer. He had a successful pastorate until he retired in 1986.

The 1964 UU hymnal, Hymns for the Celebration of Life, contains 13 songs and 23 readings by Kenneth L. Patton. The 1993 UU hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition, contains five hymns and three readings by Patton.

Part of the reason for the decline may be that many of Patton’s writings use the term man when referring to humankind. This can sound jarring to modern post-feminist ears. However, Patton’s words are still more used than Emerson’s, Channing’s, or Jesus’. Though dissatisfied with traditional religion, Patton was also disappointed with humanism. He wrote: “When I arrived in Humanistic Unitarianism . . . Hymns of the Spirit had recently been published, the first hymnbook to contain humanistic materials . . . some of questionable literary merit. Inured to the wealth and majesty of the literature of the Old Testament and the parables of the New Testament, and a two-thousand-year accumulation of Christian hymns and writings, this was a watery gruel indeed. I was saddled with a mission. I must find content for the naturalistic pronouncement and celebration.” [2]

He found most of this content in his own mind, utilizing all he had learned from world religions while proposing a human-centered faith:

Man himself is Vishnu and Shiva, sustainer and destroyer; his gods are but a reading of his own nature.

The answer is simple, or seemingly so: to live and let live, to unmake the armies and withhold man’s own hands from suicide.

For we have discovered that the Garden of Eden is in the hearts of men. Adam is driven out of the garden only by the flaming sword he holds in his own hand. Man is his own angel of judgment. His sin is against himself, and whether he may return to the garden he himself will decide.” [3]

Patton’s religion encourages us to avoid the false security of dogma and to seek mystery. The journey may be difficult, but it is worthwhile:

There are questions which come to every man in feelings of wastelands and loneliness beyond the healings of known companions. For these he has written a sad song in the day and night and written stories of slaughter and agony. For want of answers his mind has splintered and he has wandered off into the ecstacy of madness. He has sought answers in the arguments of wine and the wisdom of opium. Many have stifled the voices, drowning them in hurry and noise. Many have listened unwillingly, and turned away as soon as they could. Some listen again and again, until the yearning unknown is itself known and familiar: The quandaries become remembered faces without names, and the mysteries silent companions. To them the unanswerables are no longer pools of terrible drowning. These become the depths and body of the sea, the lifting presence beneath the keels of their vessels. They make of the mysteries a song and a story: They are taught the ways of acceptance and peace. Having known the wonder and been wedded unto it, they are secure and unconquerable. [4]

Patton was an artist who created 65 brass symbols of various religions and world cultures. The arts were a way to transcendence: “Poems are feet for running; they break open a path through the valley of questions. Dancing is the narration of a dream; the dancer is a moving body of a vision. The wordless voice of music calls a greeting from beyond the doorways of the unknown.” [5]

“Would you make a mark on the world, beauty is your only implement.” [6]

He was inspired by nature. In his hymn “The Earth Is Home,” he wrote:

.

The Earth is home and all abundant, Source of what was before we were.

She is our friend and ancient mother; her fate and all her ways are ours.

Each atom proves our common journey, Bred as we were of dusts and stars.” [7]

Religion is about finding our place in the universe

Before the stars a man is small,

Before the atom great.

Between these two infinities,

He walks the middle state. [8]

Patton’s humanism is not a cold reasoning; it dares to dream and reach beyond itself:

O man, acclaim your heritage,

Your noble history of fire.

You are the Heavens come of age

The bearer of the Sun’s desire.

A prophet come to life at last,

A thinker from its molten streams,

A valiant poet of the vast

To dream the universe’s dreams. [9]

He sought to make a universal religion for all people:

Let all men living in all lands,

Declare that fear and war are done—

Joined by the labor of their hands,

In love and understanding One. [10]

Let us worship with our eyes and ears and fingertips; let us love the world through heart and mind and body… Let us worship, not in bowing down, not with closed eyes and stopped ears. Let us worship with the opening of all the windows of our beings, with the full out stretching of our spirits. [11]

The church of tomorrow will not strive to save men from the world; it will save men in the world. [12]

Though Patton died in 1996, his challenge remains before us. How do we make our religion that respects our heritage and inspires us to be more than we are? How do we create a radical Universalism that does not get stuck in discussing what we are not but affirm who we are and what we are striving to be?

This Universalism can focus on the good works we need to do. If someone is feeding the poor, I do not care if they are fundamentalist Christian; I do not care if they are Muslim; I do not care if they are atheist. I care that they are united by the universal value of compassion.

Patton wrote: “The worship of our human toil, / Brings sacrament from sun and soil.” [13]

Let our search and work for a better world encompass and transcend all beliefs. Our radical inclusion should invite all to join us. Be willing to work with others even if they are different.

Welcome the strangers because on some universal level we are the same: We may be as different as head and toe, but we are part of the same body; we may be as different as yes and no, but we are answers to the same questions; we may be as different as mountains and valleys, but we are part of the same continent; we may be as different as night and day, but we are part of the same turning world; we may be as different as hope and fear but we are seeking to understand the same future.

The future of our movement depends on finding ways to include people in our work for a better world. When people ask me about what Unitarian Universalism is, I say we seek to unite people by what is universal.

Beyond all divisions of dogma,

May we have the courage to seek a greater truth.

Beyond all the opinions about affection,

May we seek the blessing of universal love.

Beyond the practices of politics,

May we create liberty and justice for all.

Beyond the division of our particular prejudices,

May we unite the world by seeking the universal.

May we bless and be blessed.

-o-o-o-

1. Bumbaugh, David, in A Bold Experiment: The Charles Street Universalist Meeting House,Maryell Cleary, Editor, Meaddville-Lombard Press 2002

2. Patton, Kenneth, in A Bold Experiment: The Charles Street Universalist Meeting House.

3. Patton, Kenneth, Vishnu-Shiva in Hymns for the Celebration of Life ,UUA, Boston 1964

4.-13. ibid.