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The

SUNThe Unitarian Church in NSW

PO Box 355, Darlinghurst NSW 130015 Francis Street, East Sydney

(near Museum Station)Tel: (02) 9360 2038

www.sydneyunitarianchurch.org

Sydney Unitarian News Editor: M.R. McPhee

October/November 2009

UNITARIANS IN SERVICE TO THE WORLD

It would be fair to say that the objectives of the United Nations are of cardinal importance to Unitarians and have been so throughout the history of our denomination. Peace between the nations was essential to our Transylvanian forebears, if only for their own survival during the Wars of Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The Unitarians of Britain and the US who campaigned for the abolition of slavery and voting rights for women understood the principles which would be embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. From the early 20th Century, Unitarians enthusiastically supported international organisations that sought to eliminate war, eradicate disease and alleviate poverty everywhere in the world.

Records from the League of Nations period are sketchy but some individual Unitarians played prominent roles. US President William H. Taft, who had been an appellate court judge, law professor and diplomat, negotiated arbitration treaties with the UK and France in 1910–11 and advocated the formation of an international body for the peaceful resolution of disputes. The founding father of Czechoslovakia, Tomáš Masaryk, married Charlotte Gaurrige, a Unitarian from New York and, after World War I, negotiated with the League of Nations for the independence of his country. While he was in the US in 1917, Masaryk encouraged his fellow exile, Norbert Čapek, to found a Unitarian church in their homeland, which the latter did in 1921 with the help of a grant from the American Unitarian Association.

Ironically, the only Unitarian Prime Minister of the UK was the much-maligned Neville Chamberlain! After the disastrous Munich Agreement, the AUA became concerned about their Czechoslovak confreres and sent Rev. Waitstill Sharp and his wife, Martha, to Prague in 1939. Over five months, they gave funds to the Unitarian church there and other relief organisations, also arranging jobs in other countries so that endangered people (not just Unitarians) could obtain exit visas. Before they returned to the US, World War II had commenced.

The AUA then established the Unitarian Service Committee in May 1940 and the Sharps returned to Europe, this time operating from Marseilles and Lisbon to distribute milk to children and facilitate the emigration of refugees. In 1941, the USC adopted as its seal the flaming chalice that now symbolises our denomination. Meanwhile, the Universalist Church of America, which had historic ties with the Netherlands, formed a War Relief Committee which became the Universalist Service Committee in 1945 and worked with its Unitarian counterpart in the post-war reconstruction of Europe. As a result of the merger that formed the UUA, the two

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aid groups became the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee in 1963 (see right-hand logo on the front page), whose work continues to this day.

In 1942, a young Czechoslovak refugee named Dr. Lotta Hitschmanová received medical attention from the USC’s clinic in Marseilles. She then went to Canada and joined the Unitarian congregation in Ottawa, with whose support she formed the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada in 1945. She served as its Executive Director until 1982, touring all of the project sites in developing countries and conflict zones each year in her trademark army nurse’s uniform (see front page). Today, USC Canada is prominent among Canadian non-government organisations with an international focus, not least for its policy of handing projects over to local control as soon as they are viable. When the United Nations Organisation was formed in 1945, Unitarians the world over rushed to support it in any possible way. Some had major roles, including Dr. Brock Chisholm, who was Executive Secretary of the Interim Commission that set up the World Health Organisation and served as its first Director-General from 1948 to 1953. Later, Hugh Keenleyside, a former diplomat and head of government departments, was Director-General of the Technical Assistance Administration in 1950–58. Both were Canadians and members of the First Unitarian Church of Victoria, British Columbia. Adlai Stevenson II was the US Ambassador to the UN during 1961–65 and Elliott Richardson, a former Cabinet member, served as his country’s representative to the Law of the Sea conferences in 1977–80.

There was a wide civilian movement of United Nations Associations, at least in Western countries, which had branches in every city and major town. Wherever there were Unitarian congregations, they affiliated with their local UNA and, in some places, had seats on the governing councils. Frank Field became the leader of the UK’s national UNA in the early 1970s and then worked for the World Federation of UNAs at its headquarters in Geneva. Maureen Brown Neuberger was on the Board of Directors of the American UNA in 1950–55 before she became a member of the federal Senate, only the fourth female to do so.

In 1962, the aforementioned Adlai Stevenson proposed to the UUA that every UU congregation should nominate an envoy whose task would be “to promote better knowledge and understanding of the United Nations”. That same year, the UU United Nations Office (see left-hand logo on front page) set up shop in the Community Church in New York City and, by 1965, had recruited over 300 envoys in the US and Canada. It is accredited with the UN’s Economic and Social Council and has an impressive website: www.uu-uno.org). Even after the Canadian Unitarian Council became a separate body from the UUA, there is still major Canadian involvement in the UU-UNO (and vice versa). It has now joined the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists in order to connect with the global community.

SERVICE DIARY

Meetings every Sunday from 10.30 –11.30am(followed by coffee, tea and biscuits)

* Actually, there will be a service conducted by Dr. Ian Ellis-Jones on that day but it will be held at the ANZUUA Conference in Randwick.

[Please check the church website (www.sydneyunitarianchurch.org) for updates. The program for December will be available from the beginning of November.]

Date Presenter Topic 4th October NO SERVICE* 11th October Chad Vindin Spiritual Ruminations 18th October Peter Crawford Joseph Priestley: Unitarian Scientist 25th October Chad Vindin Music Service 1st November Dr. Ian Ellis-Jones How Jesus Became a Christian 8th November Michael Spicer What Does Remembrance Day Mean Today? 15th November Peter Crawford Heresy-Weary Unitarianism22nd November Patrick Bernard The Russian Civil War29th November Chad Vindin Music Service

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Hinaot nga ang atong panagtigum mahimong usa ka malipayon kay nag-ambitay kita diha sa espiritu sa kinabuhi.

May our coming together be a joyful moment, because we share in the spirit of life.

Submitted by the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines; Visayan and English words written by Revs. Nihal A. Attanayake and Elvira Paras Sienes.

The light of life shines through the eyes of each and every person. The light of truth shines through each life.

May the light of this chalice remind us that our search for truth and light is ongoing, and is enhanced and nurtured by every person we meet.

May we honor the light in each other.

Submitted by the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations; written by Rev. Jill McAllister. (As luck would have it, she features in the article on p. 7.)

[These are the Chalice Lightings from the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists for the months of September and October.]

The Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines has 2000 members and 30 congregations, mostly on the island of Negros but also in Manila. It was founded in 1954 by Rev. Toribio S. Quimada, who was able to obtain assistance from the American UUA. After his murder in 1988, the UUCP was led by his daughter, Rev. Rebecca Quimada-Sienes. Its current president is Rev. Nihal Anton Attanyake (more about him on p.7, also), originally from Sri Lanka, and the co-author of the Chalice Lighting is presumably a granddaughter of the founder.

Negros is in the central island group between Luzon and Mindanao known as the Visayas (hence the name of the language) and the church’s headquarters is in Dumaguete City on that island. (They also have a pleasant Guest Room which they invite visitors to rent at reasonable rates.) While the UUCP focuses on liberal Christianity, it also claims great success in faith healing. More information from their website: www.uuphilippines.org.

We have written about the UUA on many other occasions and had not intended to do so now. However, we have just learned of the death from cancer of the legendary Rev. Forrest Church on 24 September, aged 61. Author of some two dozen books, he served the Unitarian Church of All Souls in New York City from 1978 till his death. He was given the Award for Distinguished Service to the Cause of Unitarian Universalism, the UUA’s most prestigious honour, in 2008.

The ICUU has approved provisional membership for the Unitarian Umbrella Organisation of Norway, super-seding the associate membership held by the Norwegian Unitarian Church. Formed in the May of this year, the UUON comprises the NUC, which follows the Transylvanian tradition, and the Norwegian Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, who are mostly American expatriates. Their websites, all of which have at least some English content, are: http://uuo.no; www.unitarforbund.no; and www.unitar.no.

The first Unitarian church in Norway was founded in Oslo by Pastor Kristofer Janson in 1895 but it ceased to function in 1937. From about 1983, some theology students at the University of Oslo formed Unitarian discussion groups which eventually merged to become the Unitarian Association. They restored Janson’s church building over 1995–2005 and succeeded in having it re-registered under the original by-laws. The NUUF was formed in 2007 by some American UUs and has grown to include locals and other nationals.

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THE DA VINCI CODE

By Dr. Ian Ellis-Jones

It is not hard to debunk Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code as well as the film purportedly based on it. Although the book makes a good read – and I intend to focus primarily on the book as opposed to the film –the plain truth is that the book is not all that well-written. Of greater concern is the fact that although the book has the appearance of having been well-researched – something that fools most readers – it is, in fact, full to the brim of half-truths, faulty logic, errors of fact and gross distortions of history.

Predictably, but entirely justifiably, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, then the Vatican’s head of doctrinal ortho-doxy, and now its recently appointed secretary of state, issued an official statement on behalf of the Catholic Church in which he described the novel as “a sack full of lies” and urged Christians not to read it. That was all that was needed to get Catholics, both practising and lapsed, as well as non-Catholics, rushing to their nearest bookstore to purchase a copy of the book.

Now, while it can be fun, and even illuminative, to attack orthodoxy, and to show that what purports to be orthodox Christianity is indeed a horrible corruption of the simple teachings and message of Jesus, Brown’s iconoclastic novel is pseudo-history totally lacking in credibility. His depiction of the Catholic Church, and particularly Opus Dei, is grossly inaccurate and even quite unfair to both. Although I don’t have a brief for Opus Dei, it would be irresponsible to form any opinion of the order based on The Da Vinci Code, especially the film version.

For the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with the story, the protagonist is world-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (played by Tom Hanks in the film). Langdon learns that Jacques Saunière, the elderly curator of the Louvre, has been murdered inside the museum. A baffling cipher is found near Saunière’s body. Langdon teams up with French cryptologist Sophie Neveu (played by Audrey Tautou in the film) to solve the mystery. Together, they enter a world of secret societies, secret codes, conspiracies, cover-ups and general mayhem and mystery.

Now, Dan Brown writes in his book: “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” However, that is not the case. Brown would have us believe that the beliefs and practices of the early Christians were entirely different to what we have been taught, and that a huge patri-archal conspiracy has hidden the real truth from us for centuries. He would also have us believe that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and even sired a royal bloodline that continues to this day. That is not the end of it. Brown also asserts that a veritable secret society of scientists and artists has seen it as their bounden duty to preserve these ancient secrets for almost 1,000 years.

Brown has a character in the novel, Sir Leigh Teabing (wonderfully played by Sir Ian McKellen in the film), assert that the Nag Hammadi texts and the Dead Sea Scrolls are “the earliest Christian records”. This is totally false, and laughably so. The Dead Sea Scrolls, which consist of copies and fragments of Old Testament books and various religious and secular writings, say nothing about the events recorded in the Gospels or for that matter anything in the New Testament. They don’t contain any gospels or anything even mentioning Jesus. The Dead Sea Scrolls are antecedent to them. The Scrolls ended very close in time to when the first Gospels or New Testament works began to appear. Brown even asserts that the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the 1950s. He can’t even get that right. They were discovered in 1947. As for the 52 Nag Hammadi texts (which were discovered in 1945), the general preponderance of academic authority is that they were written during the 4th Century CE, obviously not by eyewitnesses to the life and ministry of Jesus. In short, Brown has got all of this hopelessly wrong.

Now, do you want to know what really are the earliest surviving Christian texts? They’re in the New Testament. St Paul’s epistle, 1 Thessalonians, was written about the year 51 CE. That would almost certainly make it the oldest of all surviving Christian documents. (Some say the book of James is the oldest.) Galatians was probably written around 54-58 CE. The Book of Acts appears to have been completed by 61 CE, although some portions of it may have been written even earlier. The Gospel of Mark is unquestionably the oldest surviving gospel. It is usually dated around 70 CE. Despite what Brown has written, the Third Council of Carthage ratified the New Testament in 397 CE, there being no compulsion or coercion in that regard, and almost no credible competition from so-called “alternative gospels” (despite Brown’s erroneous

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assertion, through the character Leigh Teabing, that more than 80 [sic] gospels were considered for the New Testament canon).

Brown also asserts that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and sired a royal bloodline (Sang Réal) that survives in secret to this day. He also asserts that the early church enjoyed sexual ceremonies in celebration of Mary Magdalene, and that Jesus wanted his supposed wife to lead the Church after his death, but Peter (who supposedly became the first Pope) had other plans and took over instead. Brown also claims that the “real” Holy Grail is the earthly remains of Mary Magdalene. In Brown’s novel, it is hinted that those remains were long buried beneath Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh but in recent decades were relocated to a secret chamber embedded in the floor beneath the Inverted Pyramid near the Louvre Museum. This supposed “secret” is supposedly the “real” Holy Grail. Not the cup supposedly used by Jesus at the Last Supper. Notthe cup supposedly used to catch Jesus’ blood whilst he was dying on the Cross. Brown goes further and asserts that the Jesus-Mary royal bloodline has been protected by such esoteric societies as the Knights Templar and the so-called Priory of Sion, one of whose “Grand Masters” was supposedly none other than Leonardo da Vinci himself.

These assertions are nothing new: see, for example, the 1982 best-seller, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail(by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln). Those writers unsuccessfully sued Brown for plagiarism. Such is the law. The Holy Blood authors pointed out, among other things, that the name of Brown’s character Leigh Teabing is made up from the name of one of the three authors, plus an anagram of another.

Now, there is absolutely no historical evidence to support any of this. Indeed, the facts are altogether to the contrary. As for Jesus having been married (whether to Mary Magdalene or otherwise), the New Testament makes no mention of a wife and there is no extra-Biblical text – not even the “Gnostic gospels” that Brown makes much of in his novel – that suggests that Jesus was ever married. Brown cites the Gnostic gospel of Philip to support this claim. We only have fragments of the text he uses as his flimsy support. “And the companion of the…Mary Magdalene…her more than…the disciples…kiss her…on her…” (Philip 63:33-36). Verses 58 and 59 tend to suggest that the kiss would have been on the lips. In 1 Corinthians 16:20 St Paul makes mention of this kind of chaste kiss of fellowship (“Greet one another with a holy kiss” [RSV]), and this is likely what is meant here. However, the protagonist in The Da Vinci Code claims that the word “companion” in this verse actually means spouse because, supposedly, that’s what the Aramaic word really means. Brown stuffs up again. The Gospel of Philip was written in Coptic, not Aramaic. The word used for companion is koinonos (meaning companion, not spouse).

Brown even makes the incredible claim that the individual seated at the right hand of Jesus in da Vinci's painting “The Last Supper” is not, as commonly understood, the Apostle John (the “disciple Jesus loved”) but rather Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ supposed wife. Art experts have done their utmost to lay that one to rest. As for the Priory of Sion, Brown asserts that it is a European secret society founded in 1099, and a “real organization”. However, the so-called “order” was in fact founded in 1956 by Frenchman Pierre Plantard (1920–2000) – an anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic con artist who had been convicted of crimes involving embezzlement and fraud – and has nothing whatsoever to do with a medieval crusaders’ organization. During his lifetime Plantard formed many “phantom associations”, trying, among other things, to demon-strate that he was the uncrowned king of France. Anyway, not long before his death Plantard was compelled to admit under oath that he had fabricated everything; the alternative was further time in prison. That still didn’t stop Dan Brown in the preface to his book from asserting that the Priory of Sion is an actual secret society that really was founded many centuries ago.

Freemasonry, the oldest and largest fraternal organization in the world, is stereotypically depicted in the novel as a “secret society”, again unfairly so. I read this on the official website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: “[P]ublic knowledge about the organization [Freemasonry] is so extensive that it raises doubts about how secretive [the Masons] really are.” Indeed. A secret society has secret meeting places and may even keep secret its aims and objectives. Its members keep secret their membership of the society. There is nothing “secret” about Freemasonry in any of those senses, the aims of which are well-known (“brotherly love, relief and truth”). The only true “secrets” of modern Freemasonry are the cere-monial means of demonstrating that one is a Mason. These signs (which are “private” to members) are of ancient provenance – medieval stonemasons developed secret signs and passwords as an early form of unionism – and have great symbolical value as a symbol of the importance of fidelity and the need to

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preserve confidences in human relationships. Masons use these so-called “secrets” to test and prove the good character of those who choose to join the fraternity. It’s as simple as that.

Brown also asserts in The Da Vinci Code that the Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. Brown’s character Robert Langdon states: “The Priory believes that Constantine and his male successors successfully converted the world from matriarchal paganism to patri-archal Christianity by waging a campaign of propaganda that demonized the sacred feminine, obliterating the goddess from modern religion forever”. This wrongly implies that the Greco-Roman polytheistic religions were matriarchal until nasty Constantine conspired to change all that. This is utter rubbish. Jupiter/Zeus was King of the Gods and the supreme ruler of the world. Sure, other gods were worshipped as well but there was certainly no matriarchy.

But Brown goes even further and asserts (as did the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail) that Constantine conspired for an altogether ulterior purpose to commission “new versions” of the Christian writings documents (the original documents having been supposedly destroyed at the direction or behest of the pagan emperor Diocletian around 303 CE), with the supposed result that the accounts and writings of early Christianity were radically rewritten. This supposedly resulted in divinity being bestowed upon Jesus for the first time. However, there is absolutely no evidence for any of this, and quite a bit to the contrary. Now, whilst Constantine did indeed order that new copies of the Bible be made, that was only for the purpose of their being used in the new churches that were planned, and they were identical to the Bible texts already in existence. Remember, in those days there were no printers or photocopiers. All texts had to be manually produced. Many New Testament manuscripts and fragments pre-dating the Council of Nicaea exist to the present day, and their text is identical to the versions we have today. So, there is absolutely no evidence of there having been any radical rewriting of the sacred texts.

Brown portrays Jesus as a mere man, which may not be that shocking to Unitarians, but it certainly has given offence to most Bible-believing Christians. He goes on to claim that Jesus’ mission was not salvation, but, in effect, procreation. That’s not all. Then Brown asserts that the purpose of the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE (which had indeed been called by Constantine on behalf of the Church’s leaders) was to specifically bestow divinity upon Jesus. However, whilst the Council was convened to resolve a number of theological disputes, the divinity of Jesus was not in dispute; Jesus had been regarded as the Son of God from earliest times. Indeed, the main issue debated at the Nicene Council pertained to whether or not Jesus was of “one substance” with God the Father (and, in particular, to the Arian controversy, that is, whether Jesus as the Son of God was nevertheless “less” than the Father). Thus, the Nicene Creed refers to “one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made” [emphasis added].

Brown also asserts that Christianity honored the Jewish Sabbath of Saturday until Constantine changed the day to coincide with the pagan veneration day of the sun. However, Christians were honouring Sunday as the Sabbath long before Constantine. But Brown really gets silly when he has his character Leigh Teabing assert that “establishing Christ’s divinity was critical to the further unification of the Roman Empire”. This is utter rubbish. The historical facts make it clear that by the early 2nd Century CE Christians, as a whole, were worshipping Jesus as God. Sure, there were a variety of cults, some of which rejected the divinity of Jesus, with some (like latter-day Unitarians) asserting that Jesus himself repudiated such a belief (see, eg, Matthew 19:17), but the adoption of the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus had nothing to do with the furtherance and betterment of the Roman Empire.

There are many other errors and misstatements of fact in The Da Vinci Code – the book and the film – but I dare say few, including the very wealthy Dan Brown, care.

[This is a précis of an Address delivered at the Sydney Unitarian Church on 02 July 2006. Dr. Ian Ellis-Jones is our senior minister and has just completed his Diploma in Religious Studies. He is also the author ofBeyond the Scientology Case: Towards a Better Definition of What Constitutes a Religion for Legal Purposes in Australia Having Regard to Salient Judicial Authorities from the United States of America as well as Important Non-Judicial Authorities (thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the postgraduate degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Law (C02028), Faculty of Law, University of Technology, Sydney.) You can read the online version at: http:// hdl.handle.net/2100/404.]

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MORE ICUU NEWS

New ICUU Executive Officers

ICUU Council Meeting

Adopting a new staffing model designed to launch the ICUU into its next stage of growth and develop-ment, the Executive Committee has announced the appointment of Rev. Steve Dick as Executive Secretary and the creation of a Program Coordinator position to be filled by Rev. Jill McAllister. Both appointments took effect on 01 August 1 2009.

Rev. Dick succeeds the previous Executive Secretary, Rev John Clifford of the UK, who is retiring after four years of service. (John visited Australia in December 2007 and conducted our Christmas Service.) Until recently, Rev. Dick was Chief Executive of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches. An American by birth and a British Unitarian minister by training, Rev. Dick was a founder of the European Unitarian Universalists and was also employed by the International Association for Religious Freedom.

Rev. McAllister of the US is a founder and former president of the ICUU, as well as having served on the UUA’s Board of Trustees. She has been active in developing and delivering programs and publications for the ICUU for the past 15 years, leading task forces, conferences and symposia around the world. She has been minister at the People’s Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan, since 1998 and is the president of the Heartland regional chapter of the UU Ministers Association. She is also a vice-president of ISAAC (Interfaith Strategy for Advocacy and Action in the Community), which focuses on grassroots organising around social justice issues.

Both positions are half-time and the officers will mostly work from their respective homes.

The eighth biennial Council meeting was held over 01–05 September in Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca), Romania, for the first time ever in our denomination’s Transylvanian birthplace. A record 77 registered participants attended, including seven from Asia, three from Africa and two each from Latin America and Australia-New Zealand. The new president of the UUA, Rev. Peter Morales, was there along with our ANZUUA president, Rev. Derek McCullough.

Brian Kiely, until recently president of the Canadian Unitarian Council, and David Shaw of the UK were re-elected as President and Treasurer, respectively. The new Vice-President is Pauline Rooney of the Adelaide Unitarian Church, replacing Rev. Gordon Oliver of South Africa, and Dávid Gyerő of Transylvania succeeds Jaume de Marcos of Spain as Secretary elected. The new Members-at-Large are Rev. Nihal Attanayake of the Philippines, Femi Matimoju of Nigeria and Celia Midgley of the UK.

Kolozsvár is the principal city of Transylvania and the fourth-largest in Romania. Its population of about 400,000 includes 60,000 Székely (ethnic Hungarians) and its bilingual Babeş-Bolyai University is the largest in the country. The city is a centre of arts and culture, especially performing arts, as well as being home to a burgeoning IT industry. A large number of tourists come there every year and many cultural festivals are held there. (The picture at top right is of the first Unitarian Church of Kolozsvár.)

We can only envy those who arrived in time for the two-day tour of Transylvania which preceded the Conference. On the Monday, they went to Torda, site of the formative Diet, and on to Gyulafehérvár to see the 1000-year-old cathedral where King John Sigismund and his mother, Isabella, are entombed. They stayed overnight at Deva, after attending a vesper service at the citadel where Francis Dávid died in prison. The return journey was via Vajdahunyad, which has a fairy-tale castle dating from the 13th Century, and Mészkő,where they laid a wreath on the grave of Ferenc Balázs (1901–1937), the minister, poet, novelist and social reformer who did so much for the villages in the region.

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HEAVEN

Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,Dawdling away their wat’ry noon)Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,Each secret fishy hope or fear.Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;But is there anything Beyond?This life cannot be All, they swear,For how unpleasant, if it were!One may not doubt that, somehow, GoodShall come of Water and of Mud;And, sure, the reverent eye must seeA Purpose in Liquidity.We darkly know, by Faith we cry,The future is not Wholly Dry.Mud unto mud! – Death eddies near –Not here the appointed End, not here!But somewhere, beyond Space and Time.Is wetter water, slimier slime!And there (they trust) there swimmeth OneWho swam ere rivers were begun,Immense, of fishy form and mind,Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;And under that Almighty Fin,The littlest fish may enter in.Oh! never fly conceals a hook,Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,But more than mundane weeds are there,And mud, celestially fair;Fat caterpillars drift around,And Paradisal grubs are found;Unfading moths, immortal flies,And the worm that never dies.And in that Heaven of all their wish,There shall be no more land, say fish.

Rupert Brooke (1913)

‘Fish Heaven’ by Pierre Dumas

‘All Fish Go To Heaven’ by mortalwombat

Rupert Brooke (1887–1915) was an English poet, better known for his idealistic war sonnets. Indeed, this poem was published in his collection, 1914 and Other Poems (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1915) along with his best-known work, ‘The Soldier’. Ironically, he enlisted as a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in 1914 and was with the Gallipoli-bound Mediterranean Expedition Force when he developed septicemia from an infected mosquito bite. He died aboard a French hospital ship off the Aegean island of Skyros and was buried in an olive grove there.

The pictures can be seen in proper colour and better detail if you search ‘fish heaven’ in Google Images. The first two are from websites where artists exhibit their skills in ‘photoshopping’ (computer-enhanced photo-graphy). The third is from a weblog called Masala Vade, which mainly deals with Indian cooking but also has humorous personal items such as an obituary for a pet goldfish. We suspect that all three artists are Americans, unless ‘mortalwombat’ is an Australian living in the US.

This has consumed almost all of our normal humour page but we will give you some more on p. 15. For now, consider this one-liner from the American comedian, Lenny Bruce:

“I know my humor is outrageous when it makes the Unitarians so mad they burn a question mark on my front lawn.”

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THE GREEN FIELDS OF FRANCE

How do you do, young Willie McBride?Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside,And rest for a while ’neath the warm summer sun? I’ve been walking all day and I'm nearly done.I see by your gravestone you were only nineteenWhen you joined the Great Fallen in 1916.I hope you died well and I hope you died cleanOr, young Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

(Chorus)Did they beat the drum slowly? Did they play the fife lowly?Did they sound the Death March as they lowered you down?Did the band play ‘The Last Post’ in chorus?Did the pipes play ‘The Flowers of the Forest’?

Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?Although you died back in 1916,In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen?Or are you a stranger without even a name,Closed down forever behind a glass frameIn an old photograph that’s all tattered and stainedAnd faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?

The sun, now it shines on the green fields of France;There’s a warm summer breeze makes the red poppies dance.The trenches have vanished long under the plow;There’s no gas, no barbed wire, there’s no guns firing now.But here in this graveyard, it’s still no man's land –The countless white crosses in mute witness standTo man's blind indifference to his fellow manAnd a whole generation that were butchered and damned.

Now, young Willie McBride, I can’t help wonder whyDo those who lie here know why they have died?Did they believe when they answered the call?Did they really believe that this war would end wars?Well, the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the painThe killing and the dying were all done in vain.For, young Willie McBride, it all happened again,And again and again and again and again.

Eric Bogle (1944 – )

This song, originally entitled ‘No Man’s Land’, will hopefully address our traditional themes of United Nations Day (24 October) and Armistice Day (11 November). Eric Bogle is a Scottish songwriter who has lived in Australia since 1969, where he is better known for ‘And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda’ (1972). Written in 1976, the song was first recorded in 1979 by an Irish group, The Fureys, for which reason it is often sung by Irish bands here. Since then, it has been recorded by many artists and translated into Welsh, German and Czech.

As with any song, the printed words are a bit lame without the music, so anyone with adequate computer technology should find a website which will play it. However, no two renditions are exactly the same and the lyrics given here include some changes made by the Scottish-Canadian musician, John McDermott, which Bogle is reported to have approved.]

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“WE NEED NOT THINK ALIKE TO LOVE ALIKE.”

President’s Address to the ANZUUA ConferenceSydney, Australia

October 2009

These words echoed in my head when, during my recent visit to Transylvania, I laid a wreath in the cell where Francis Dávid was imprisoned in 1579.

Those prophetic words were reflected by the small band of Unitarian and Universalists that had made the pilgrimage to Deva as part of the recent ICUU meeting. Around me were Mexicans, Canadians, Transyl-vanians, Indonesians, Americans, Bolivians and British, all with their own distinctive expressions of their faith. Their theology ranged from Free Christian to Secular Humanist, yet we were all connected by love; love for religious freedom and tolerance.

This led me to think about how we in Australia and New Zealand interpret our Unitarian Universalism. Is there a distinctive ANZUUA voice and if so, what is it? How are we alike and how are we different from each-other?

I got a glimpse of the answers to these questions when I visited all of the member groups in the month of August 2006. This trip was considered important because of a period of inactivity by ANZUA for the previous two years. In ways both obvious and subtle, the spirit and pulse of each group was revealed to me on that trip.

It was clear that, like it was in Transylvania, we have quite an array of theological expression, but I found that what bound us was not only a love of liberal religion, but also a burgeoning “down under” understanding of Unitarian Universalism. While strongly influenced by its British origins and more recent American support, it is increasingly becoming a distinctive voice with its own distinctive characteristics.

I think that our principle task now is to develop and proclaim that voice.

I find it easier to describe the process by reverting to the restaurant lingo of my previous life as a chef. I see the new Constitution and web protocol as setting the table. Once the table is set it is up to us to provide the meal. We have the ingredients down here to prepare a sumptuous feast that can nurture us, inspire us and one that we can share with the rest of the world, providing them with an experience that can be found nowhere else.

But we mustn’t only look inwards. I think we also have an obligation to contribute to the health of our global UU family. In looking outwards, I think we need to change our focus from our traditional colonial connec-tions with Britain and the USA, to our regional family. This process has already started at the international level. At the last three ICUU Council meetings, we were part of the Austral-Asian region, along with Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, the Philippines and now Hong Kong. This is our closest family and at the recent meeting in Kolozsvár, an Asia Pacific UU website was started, donated by Pauline Rooney and managed by Steve Dick, the new ICUU executive secretary. I urge all ANZUUA groups get involved, particularly in the ‘Front Door Project’. With Rev. Nihal Attanayake from the Philippines as the coordinator it promises to be an active group.

These issues, and others, will form part of the conversation that we will hold in Sydney. When meeting this week, I hope we honour the words of Francis Dávid – “We need not think alike to love alike” – and engage in robust yet respectful dialogue. I hope we leave Sydney with a better understanding of who we are and where we are going.

Derek McCulloughPresident, ANZUUA

[Derek adds that the ‘Front Door Project’ involves churches in the Asia-Pacific region sending photographs of their entrances to be arranged in a poster showing the diversity of our meeting places. It will have a slogan along the lines of: “Our doors are different but you are welcome at all of them.”]

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A MOUSE STORY

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. “What food might this contain?”, the mouse wondered – he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning: “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Mr.Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The pig sympathized, but said, “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”

The mouse turned to the cow and said, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.”

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone. That very night a sound was heard throughout the house – like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught.

The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital and she returned home with a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient. But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbours came to sit with her around the clock.

To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them. The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.

So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you, remember – when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another.

[This parable is cited in many websites, none of which identify the writer or where and when it was first published, though it is a least ten years old. We received it via the uuma- huumor (that spelling is intentional) mailing list, where the UU Ministers Association shares jokes that can be used to liven up their services. However, the list is open to all comers and all manner of material is disseminated on it.]

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

This ‘bumper’ 16-page issue of our journal for the occasion of the Conference has been a great challenge –but also an inspiration – for me and I would like to tell you a few things about it, if only for the possible edification of others who perform similar duties for their congregations. I am, of course, indebted to those who contributed material and, especially, to my many overseas contacts who provided information for my feature article and the pages affecting the ICUU. My queries to the unofficial ICUU mailing list drew responses from places as diverse as the UK, Starr King School for the Ministry and Transylvania.

It’s always funny how every issue takes on a life of its own in the compilation process, even in such simple instances as the unintended World War I connection between the humour page and the culture page (both of which constitute the ‘centre-fold’ of my normal 12-page issues). But I was truly surprised by the ‘Czech connection’ that developed in the feature article – I knew that Masaryk was a Unitarian but not that Dr. Lotta Hitschanová (her doctorate was in languages, just for the record) was Czech. I well remember her visits to the Vancouver Unitarian Church when I was young but had never known she was in charge of USC Canada.

So, you have seen the work of most of our ‘leading lights’ but for our prolific President and minister, Patrick Bernard. Had he not been two busy, this journal would have gone to 20 pages!

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“Think Truly, Speak Bravely, Act Justly”

ANZUUA CONFERENCE 2009Friday October 2 to Monday October 5

Venue: The Centre, Randwick (www.thecentre.com.au)

Friday October 2

3 pm – 6 pm: Arrival & Registration… “Settling in”

6 pm: Meeting of ANZUUA Executive

7 pm: Smorgasbord Dinner

Saturday October 3

9.45 am – 10 am: Greeting/Welcome “Connection to the Land” Convenor: Peter Crawford

10 am - 10.30 am: Bob Carr - Official Opening “Challenge to the Conventional Wisdoms”

10.35 am - 11.10 am: Alan Clarke “Charity Work in a Big City”

11.10 am - 11.40 am: Morning Tea

11.45 am - 12.25 pm: Diane Kynaston “Men and Women in Religion”

12.30 pm - 2 pm: BBQ Lunch

2.15 pm - 3 pm: Mark O’Connor “Poetry, People & Spirituality”

3pm - 3.40pm: Afternoon Tea

3.45 pm - 6.30 pm: Plenary Session Discussions/Resolutions/ Elections

7 pm - 10.30 pm: Chinese Banquet Dinner followed by music and other entertainment

Sunday October 4

10 am - 11.30 am: Church Service and Flower Communion conducted by Ian Ellis-Jones. His sermon is entitled “The Challenge for Modern Day Unitarians and Universalists: Reclaiming the Sacred and Holy”

11.30am - 12.30 pm: Smorgasbord Lunch

12.30 pm - 2 pm: Plenary Session

2.15 pm - 2.45 pm: Peter Ferguson “The Sacred Heresies of Unitarianism Against the Bedrock of Christian Orthodoxy”

[This information is mainly for the benefit of readers were unable to attend the Conference. It is a ‘streamlined’ version of the program produced by our illustrious Secretary, Michael Spicer, who has also done much of the ‘infrastructural’ work for the event.]

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3 pm - 6 pm: WORKSHOPS

The Power of Music - Chad Vindin Post Modern Prayer & Meditation - Walter Mason Release your inner-world through writing - Mark O’Connor Effective communication - Peter Crawford

Each workshop will run for 90 minutes and then will be repeated.

7pm Italian Cuisine Dinner

Monday October 5

10am- 12pm: Plenary Session: Resolutions/ Future Directions 12.30pm- 2pm: Smorgasbord Lunch and Farewell

LIST OF SPEAKERS

Bob Carr was Premier of New South Wales from 1995 to 2005, the longest term in that office held by anyone. His parliamentary career commenced in 1983 when he was elected MLA for the seat of Maroubra, prior to which he had been a journalist for ABC Radio, education officer for the NSW Labour Council and industrial relations reporter for The Bulletin. He held a number of Ministries in 1984–1988, after which he became leader of the State ALP. He is the author of two books, Thoughtlines: Reflections of a Public Man(2002) and What Australia Means to Me (2003), and the subject of two biographies.

Alan Clarke is a writer who founded Street Mission in 1998, a self-funded organisation which feeds and provides life essentials for the homeless and disadvantaged in society, with an emphasis on young people. In addition to their Street Mission Café, they fund and support the welfare programs of several other local charities and organisations. These services include emergency food supplies, hygiene products, training programs, Christmas hampers and much more.

Dianne Kynaston is a long-standing member of the Theosophical Society, having served for eight years as General Secretary of the Australian Section and three years as President of the Indo-Pacific Federation, which covers TS centres across Asia. She has lectured extensively for the Theosophical Society throughout Australia, New Zealand and Asia, including Indonesia and Singapore. Her topics range from mainstream Theosophical teachings and women’s spirituality to Western esoteric traditions, such as the Grail Legends and Celtic mythology, to modern topics such as the Da Vinci Code.

Mark O’Connor is a professional poet who has taught English at several universities, including the ANU. He has published sixteen books of verse, and is the editor of the Oxford University Press’ much-reprinted Two Centuries of Australian Poetry. He has also published prose books on environment and literary criticism; and his poetry shows a special interest in environment. He was the Australian National University’s H. C. Coombs Fellow in 1999, and thereafter a Visiting Scholar in its Department of Archae-ology and Natural History. He is a frequent voice on a range of ABC Radio programs and has his own website: www.australianpoet.com/about.html.

Peter Ferguson was ordained as an Anglican priest in Goulburn in 1961 and served in parishes in NSW, South Africa (where he worked against apartheid) and Western Australia. He was President of the WA Peace Committee in 1979–1983, during which time he wrote and presented several Encounter Programmes for ABC Radio covering such topics as multinational corporations, nuclear war, unemployment, economic monetarism as well as a documentary on anti-Semitism. From 1984 to 1993, he was Anglican Chaplain at Curtin University of Technology and held other offices in the academic and religious community. In 2000, he resigned from the Anglican Church and established the Unitarian Association of WA in that same year.

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AUSTRALIA’S POPULATION PROBLEM

By Peter Crawford

At the turn of the 19th Century, it was generally accepted that nations needed people – ‘the more the merrier’,as the old saying goes. Scientific and technological knowledge were extremely limited compared to our own time. Understanding the biological impact of sheer human numbers was not important. By contrast, wars were a regular occurrence. Great numbers of men were required to fill armies. Think of the armies of Russia and Prussia. Similarly in the industrial sphere, numbers were vital. Great armies of industrial workers were required to provide factory fodder. Think of the working classes of Europe and North America.

In the New World, indigenous peoples had to be replaced by settler Europeans and the native flora and fauna by acclimatised agriculture and pastoral enterprises. No-one had heard of the environment. Needs and circumstances have changed, however. Modern weaponry has made sheer numbers incidental in con-ventional warfare. Automation and affluence have eliminated the need for the old ‘working classes’. And we have developed something of a conscience about our treatment of the environment.

But ideas should have changed. Today, we should be aiming for a stable and perhaps slowly declining population in every country – I repeat, every country. China is aiming for this result. If only the rest of the world would follow suit. We should be aware that human numbers have far exceeded the carrying capacity of the earth. The entire natural setting of the earth is in steep and perhaps irremediable decline because of human population growth and its concomitant technology. Cities are becoming ever more uncomfortable because of population growth. Witness Sydney experiencing six hours of peak hour each workday and enduring its intolerable traffic weekends! You will see how we are catering to far too many people. View the droughts and species extinctions that scourge the earth while you read this document. Human numbers have increased from a manageable one billion in 1900 to a staggering seven billion today. Yet the mindset of yesteryear still prevails. The mind of Romulus who insisted on population growth for Rome in its founding days still dominates thinking today!

August journals like The Economist and The Spectator present articles lauding population growth and condemning the economic policies of nations where human numbers have reached some sensible equilibrium. They love to tell you how Japan is facing a grim future, how Europe is facing a ‘demographic winter’. They neglect to tell you that both Europe and Japan are wonderful places to live simply because they have reasonably stable populations. Japan has made a great fist of its 130 million people in terms of housing, employment and environment but it would be much more pleasant if its population steadily declined. Japan is indeed massively overcrowded and, despite its excellent management, would be far happier and spiritually richer with a mere proportion of its current population.

France has remained one of the world’s most liveable countries precisely because its population has increased only very slowly since the 18th Century. It would have a much better future if its population stabilised at its present 60 million and did not soar to the 100 million, a dream of some French nationalists and religious zealots. Big business and their media apologists also fail to tell you that every nation in the world with a high birthrate and surging population is a miserable dump. These places are scourged with disease, poverty, homelessness and a desire to emigrate. If you don’t believe me take a trip one of these days to the Philippines, Pakistan or anywhere in Africa of your choosing.

Now we come to the problem of population in Australia. Australia has always been plagued with population zealots. ‘Populate or perish’ was the slogan of Prime Minister Billy Hughes in the early years of Federation. ‘Australia Unlimited’ was the rallying cry of the Sydney Morning Herald several decades ago. Today the Business Council of Australia pushes interminable immigration and baby bonuses. Currently, our population growth has reached record highs. Just two years ago our population projection was geared to reach 27 million by 2050. Today, since the advent of Kevin Rudd as prime minister, we are predicted to reach 35 million. This is made likely by the uncritically pro-immigration minister, Chris Evans. The Rudd Govern-ment has become one of the great populating governments of modern history. As a country with a moderate population by world standards we are still overloaded. We are one of the driest and most fragile of lands,where human beings have done more environmental damage than any other continent.

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We are currently doing our best to create in Australia all the misfortunes of countries with lower quality of life and standards of living than those we currently enjoy. White settlement in Australia has not been a pretty picture in many ways. Having crushed the indigenous peoples in the 19th Century, we then set about savaging the environment. We have the record for species extinctions, something like twenty-seven species of mammals and forty-six species of birds. We have cleared and ravaged tens of millions of hectares ofvegetation. We are now tearing up the minerals and energy as if there is no tomorrow and selling it off as fast as we can. And all this it seems to support a soaring population. And all this is being perpetrated in an age of global warming and extreme environmental deterioration!

In a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald, Ross Gittins, Sydney’s most intellectually respectable economics writer, heavily criticised Australia’s current population explosion. Gittins pointed out that all the shibboleths justifying heavy increased population are profoundly flawed. Population growth will not make the Australian population significantly younger, obviating social security payments several decades hence, as claimed. Even if this were the case, it should not mean a commitment to mindless unending growth. Population growth will be the stimulus to untold environmental hazard around the cities. It will push up the price of real estate and massively exacerbate carbon emissions.

Let Gittins express his ideas far more articulately than I am able:

“Our apparently universally approved determination to maintain high immigration greatly increases the difficulty we’ll have in reducing our carbon emissions, puts a lot of upward pressure on house prices and raises questions about whether we are exceeding our earth’s carrying capacity.”

“You might think that once people have been born it doesn’t matter to the global environment what country they live in…but if they move from a developing to a developed country – as in our case most would – their standard of living and their use of natural resources greatly increases.”

It’s a shame that most economists don’t reason like Gittins.

[Peter Crawford is another of our ministers and Vice-President of SUC. Since he mentions economics, we’ll give you some humour on that subject. This is a brief selection from a much longer list that again is all over the Internet without attribution; however, we suspect that it is the work of many people responding to a contest.]

THE ECONOMY IS SO BAD THAT…

… I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.

… I ordered a burger at McDonalds and the kid behind the counter asked, “Can you afford fries with that?”

…CEOs are now playing miniature golf.

… if the bank returns your check marked ‘Insufficient Funds’, you call and ask if they meant you or them.

… Hot Wheels and Matchbox stocks are trading higher than GM.

… Obama met with three small businesses to discuss the Stimulus Package: GE, Pfizer, and Citigroup.

… McDonalds is selling a quarter-ouncer.

… parents in Beverly Hills have fired their nannies and learned their children's names.

… a truckload of Americans was caught sneaking into Mexico.

… people in Africa are donating money to Americans.

…the Mafia is laying off judges.

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THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“...The life of Man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instill faith in hours of despair. Let us not weigh in grudging scales their merits and demerits, but let us think only of their need--of the sorrows, the difficulties, perhaps theblindnesses, that make the misery of their lives; let us remember that they are fellow-sufferers in the same darkness, actors in the same tragedy as ourselves....” Bertrand Russell (in Free Man’s Worship)

COMMITTEE NEWS

The next Committee meeting will be held on 01 November 2009. If members have any matters which they would like to be placed on the agenda for discussion, they should contact the Secretary on 0423 393 364 or email: michael_j_spicer@yahoo.com.au.

CONTACT US

The SUN welcomes any and all contributions our members may have. If you have any items you believe would be of interest, please submit them for publication. As you can see from the contents of this issue, such items can be serious articles, informative ‘fillers’, poems or even jokes.

Deadline for copy for the December/January issue of The SUN is Sunday, 15 November 2009. The preferred method for sending documents is as an attached WORD file to: info_syduni@yahoo.com.au – otherwise, simple email is suitable for short items or messages. Alternately, copy can be posted or brought to the church.

Some membership renewals for 2009 are still due – please see the form below for that purpose. Those wishing to join can use this form by way of application but should not send payment until their membership is accepted.

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MEMBERSHIP/RENEWAL FORM

I, (name) ___________________________________________________

of (address) _________________________________________________

________________________________ Postcode _________

Phone(s): (home) __________________ (other) ___________________

Email: ______________________________________________________

apply to join/renew membership in (delete one) the Sydney Unitarian Church and agree to abide by the rules as set down by the Constitution and management of the church.

Signature: ________________________________ Fee enclosed: $_____*

Cheques should be made payable to: Treasurer, Sydney Unitarian Church. Membership is valid for the calendar year 2008 and should be renewed by 01 January 2009.

* Annual membership is $20 and includes the SUN journal; subscription to the SUN only is $15