This series has taken a crack at a bunch of ways Vancouverites are finding the sorts of satisfaction and fulfillment previous generations have attained through religion — just without the religion. Some of those approaches have been, as one of my interviewees puts it, pretty “woo-woo.”
To close this series, we’re bringing it back to a spiritual practice that most closely resembles traditional religion — on the outside at least.
“The term believer is used as a synonym for a person with a religious commitment,” says Phillip Hewett, minister emeritus at the Unitarian Church of Vancouver. That term doesn’t work for Unitarians because they do not share any common beliefs. You don’t need to believe in anything to be a good Unitarian — perhaps it’s better, in fact, if you don’t.
“The Unitarian movement has been set up to be based on personal spirituality, your own development, rather than adherence to a particular creed,” he says. “The unifying factor is that we are looking for some kind of spiritual depth in life, but we are not constrained within any particular group so that we are able to draw from all the world’s traditions of religion and spirituality.”
The Indian mystic Ramakrishna talked about the ascent of the mountain, Hewett says.
“There are many paths up the mountain, but the nearer you get to the summit the closer they all converge,” he says. “They’re all in the same place when they get to the top.
That’s kind of the basis on which we organize the congregation. People can start from all kinds of points of departure but what we’re looking for is something which is unifying.”
Unitarians can come from a wide range of conventional religious traditions, Hewett says. “It’s sort of a spiritual co-op if you like.”
So does Reverend (“we don’t dwell on” titles, he says) Phillip Hewett of the Unitarian Church consider himself a Christian?
“The usual answer is 29 per cent — and the rate of exchange may go up from day to day. I draw from the Christian tradition and from the Buddhist tradition and from the other world religions that seem to ring my bell,” he says.
As far as rituals go, they are flexible.
“If you’ve come this week, don’t think it’s like this necessarily every time,” he says. But one thing you could expect on any given Sunday is “at the end of the service, we all join hands and sing ‘Carry the flame of peace and love until we meet again.’ That’s something I think would be really missed if it weren’t done.”
Despite the lack of structure and creed, Hewlett suggests Unitarianism is not for slackers.
“It’s somewhat demanding of a person,” he says. “It’s something that can’t be picked up casually. We do tend to draw people who are accustomed to thinking for themselves and making their own decisions in various dimensions of life. One of the old jokes says you don’t have to be a PhD to be a Unitarian, but it helps.”
Hewett, who like many who reach a certain age proudly declare it, is 90 years old. He came to Vancouver from Britain in 1956 after a short Unitarian ministry there. He presided over Vancouver’s Unitarian flock from then until 1991, overseeing the construction in 1964 of the current church and centre at Oak and 49th.
He discovered his calling after feeling that the Church of England, in which he was raised, wasn’t meeting his spiritual needs. There was no internet then, he points out, so he went to the Encyclopedia Britannica and investigated alternatives. He got nearly to the end of the encyclopedia before he found his niche.
“Up to that point, I had never to my knowledge met a Unitarian,” he says. “So I got in touch with the nearest minister after that and we had a long discussion. At the end of the discussion I said, well how do I become a Unitarian? And he said, I’ve been listening to you and you don’t have to become a Unitarian, you are a Unitarian. He recognized it before I did.”
Unitarianism flourished in North America in the 1950s and ’60s as people left traditional churches and sought something more freewheeling. But its history goes much further back. The Vancouver congregation began in 1909, brought by British immigrants mostly. In the United States, Unitarianism evolved more from an organic reaction to founding Puritan ideals. But in Europe, the movement dates to the 16th century. As the power of the Roman Catholic Church over Western Europe disintegrated during the Reformation, Protestant groups emerged, some more liberal than others.
“They were just as intolerant, in fact. So-called heretics were beheaded or burned at the stake by Protestants and Catholics alike,” Hewett says. Of all places, Transylvania, which is now part of Romania, is a veritable Unitarian hotbed. This is because, Hewett says, his co-religionists were able to play off Christian Hapsburgs against Muslim Ottomans and find a niche in the civilizational divide between East and West.
Back in Vancouver, Hewett says his church has had its ups and downs. He estimates about 500 members in all, with maybe 2,000 province-wide. A couple of churches and a few fellowships (Unitarian groups without a minister) are scattered around B.C.
If you’re looking for answers or for someone to tell you what to believe, Unitarianism is probably not for you.
“It’s something which appeals to people who are willing to live with some degree of insecurity in life and know that nobody has the answer,” he says.
@Pat604Johnson
