The thing that really struck me hardest about Schleiermacher’s arguments was that he was completely understanding of necessity-driven faith claims, but expected them to hold up to scrutiny. If there is one thing I learned in the religion program in college, it’s that responsible faith has to function systematically – meaning that, when you make a change to your claims, you have to follow every line in the web and make sure that you have thought through all the nuanced impacts of a new belief. The belief in the doctrine of trinity that Schleiermacher was responding to was nothing new, and had not been treated responsibly and thoughtfully. Every rationale was flawed, every argument failed – at least logically. It seemed to me that Schleiermacher’s frustration was that this doctrine was a mess of illogical contradictions, which could ONLY function if all believers simultaneously and implicitly agreed not to think about it too hard.
And that frustration really resonates for me, and directly connects to a pressing need I have seen in the faith community I serve. Many Unitarians are disillusioned with the Christian Church, and have been hurt by what is experienced to be irresponsible faith. When doctrines didn’t make sense – and when they did not feel the love needed to be willing to take the leap of faith and jump in logic when rational thinking didn’t get them all the way there – they gave up on the Church entirely. Often, they gave up on God. As Schleiermacher says, “It is natural that people who cannot reconcile themselves to the difficulties and imperfections that cling to the formulae current in Trinitarian doctrine should say that they repudiate everything connected with it, whereas in point of fact their piety is by no means lacking in the specifically Christian stamp.”[1] These are, sometimes, people who have let themselves be fooled into thinking that a doctrine that is often assumed to be so foundational is an actual requirement for all those who take part in that faith. Maybe they don’t realize it, or don’t care, or don’t have the will to fight, or are generally moved past the fighting, but so many Unitarians at the church I serve don’t take advantage of their right and responsibility to claim their own faith. They believe that belief in God and rejection of Christian doctrine are mutually exclusive, and don’t take the chance to mature in their faith by challenging and strengthening it. “In point of fact”, their values, morals and beliefs may well still fall in the Christian category – if they claim their place in that community.
Jesus can mean something to the members of my faith community. Yes, we belong to a Unitarian church – and for those of us who know what that specific faith claim means, many may actually be theologically Unitarian. To varying degrees, we’re likely to reject the idea of Jesus Christ as a personal Lord and Savior. But I’m willing to bet, if we wanted to, we could still claim the name Christian. Schleiermacher says that we ought to “become convinced that it is possible for our faith in the divine present in Christ and in the Christian communion to find fir theological expression, even before anything has been heard of those more exact definitions which go to form the doctrine of the Trinity.”[2] The idea of the divine being present in Christ – that’s a very roomy idea, plenty of space to stretch and shape the idea around ourselves.
At the end of the day, I’m not going to ask my Unitarian sisters and brothers to consider being Christian. That’s their business. But I do believe that we need to be responsible in our faith, as Schleiermacher calls us all to be. Rejecting a doctrine, such as Trinitarianism, and tossing all our ties to our faith of origin, and perhaps even our belief in God, out with the bathwater - that is irresponsible and tragic. We make our jumps in logic, not always out of love but perhaps out of fear, anger and hurt. Schleiermacher seems to suggest we do faith with an open heart and a clear head. We claim to love reason. Let’s do faith as well.
