When I saw the Speaking of Faith episode entitled The Need for Creeds I just knew I had to listen to it. I often like to test and challange my beliefs and perhaps nothing could be more challenging to a UU than to assert that creeds are good for you. The format of SoF is an hour interview with a certain person about a certain topic. The interviewee in this episode was Christian historian Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan.

Pelikan asserts that when one removes a creed, it must necessarily be eventually replaced by another creed. He quoted Emerson’s Divinity School Address, in which he said to the Unitarian seminarians, “So let me admonish you, first of all, to go alone; to refuse the good models, even those which are sacred in the imagination of men, and dare to love God without mediator or veil. … Yourself, a newborn bard of the Holy Spirit — cast behind you all conformity, and acquaint people at first hand with Deity.” This is a precursor to the UU principle of the free and responsible search, which now guides all UU congregations. His response to Emerson was that “The only alternative to tradition is bad tradition.”

According to Pelikan once one raises children and must teach them, all (s)he has to teach them is what (s)he believes, which over time becomes, itself an institutionalized creed. I disagree. Even before any of us had ever heard of Unitarian Universalism, my Zen Buddhist father and lapsed Catholic mother did not raise me in their faith traditions (or lack thereof). That is not to say that they did not share with me their insights or those of teachers that inspired them. They raised me how any UU parent would raise their child; not to believe something just because they do, but to think and experience for myself. This is what makes our tradition so different from others and difficult for others to grasp.

I would not go so far as to say we must refuse the models which others offer us, as Emerson says. I personally like to collect models, and examine them at my leisure. One may be able to purchase pieces of art, but can never buy the actual art itself. So it is with our theological models. The models which have been fashioned by other hands, but the only one I can truely own is the one I have made myself.

Unsurprsingly, I’m not the first UU to respond to this show. Several other UUs had some insightful responses to Pelikan’s assertions. It’s too bad that Pelikan has passed away. A conversation between him and a modern Unitarian Universalist would certainly have been a sight to see.