Background for Teachers
From Traditions with a Wink by Kate Erslev

The lessons with a bible theme aim to teach middle schoolers about our Unitarian Universalist approach to the Bible. In Unitarian Universalism, the bible is seen as a library, a collection of small books bound together. The word "Bible" is Greek for "books". The Bible is made up of 2 sections, sometimes called the Old Testament and the New Testament. We, as UU's, want to honor the fact that the Jewish people do not refer to their sacred text as "Old Testament". Instead, we can refer to the 2 sections as the Jewish Scriptures, or Torah, and the Christian Scriptures.

We believe that the Bible is the result of many people and writing over centuries of time, a long time ago. These people were trying to answer some very important questions, such as "When did the world begin, and how?" "Where did people come from" and "What does it mean that men and women feel about each other the way they do?" Although some people believe that the Bible's answers to these questions are the only right ones (and they often call the Bible "the Word of God" for that reason), UU's believe that there is no one final answer. There is "truth" in the Bible, in the truth of the insights and stories that still speak to us today. There is beauty, and myth, and poetry, and compelling stories that are worth knowing.

We acknowledge that our world has changed, though, and these stories are the result of times that are very ancient. We must use our own experiences and think for ourselves as well.
      -paraphrased from "What to Tell Young People About Unitarian Universalism... a guide for adults to help in answering large questions simply." by Charles S. Giles.

" (William Ellery Channing's) defense of Unitarianism was also a defense of the Bible and of religion. He recoiled against "the contemptuous manner in which human reason is often spoken of by our adversaries, because it leads, we believe, to universal skepticism." His words remain important even today, because fundamentalism of the right has its whiplash in fundamentalism of the left. When the true believer proclaims that the Bible is the unique word of God - to be accepted without question - the true unbeliever responds by dismissing scripture as a figment of demented imaginations.

A handful of Unitarian Universalists boast that in their church the only time the words "Jesus Christ" are uttered during worship is when their minister trips on the steps. Channing would have found them as unreasonable as those in this day who read their Bibles without thinking. To him the Bible was written not by God, but by inspired people, drawing from both history and experience, who sought to understand better the larger meaning of life and death. Fundamentalists may trivialize the Bible by excluding reason as the principal tool by which it may be understood, but this does not mean that reasonable reflections upon the stories and teachings contained therein cannot markedly advance our own humble search for meaning and for faith.

In addition to William Ellery Channing, another Bostonian who had something new to say about religion was Theodore Parker. In his great sermon, "The Transient and the Permanent in Christianity, " Parker offered a dynamic resolution for those of us who wish to mine the Bible for its wisdom without sacrificing our critical faculties. Much of what the Bible contains is time- bound, he argued, and therefore of marginal relevance to us today. But it also contains eternal truths, which we can mine without ever exhausting. "The solar system as it exists in fact is permanent", Parker wrote, "though the notions of Thales and Ptolemy, of Copernicus and Descartes, about this system, prove transient, imperfect approximations to the true expression. So the Christianity of Jesus is permanent, though what passes for Christianity with popes and catechisms, with sects and churches, in the first century or in the nineteenth century, prove transient also."

...ln the Bible, when religion is defined, its requirements entail concrete duties, not abstract theological formulations. "What does the Lord require of you," the prophet Micah asked, "but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God." That is as abstract and theological as it gets. ...Like many other Unitarian Universalists, I mine the Bible for that which inspires me to be a better person, more loving, more neighborly. It is rich in such material. But the Bible is not a single, sacrosanct book; it is a whole library of books representing the history, legends, laws, wisdom, and poetry of a people. And even these have been edited and re-edited over the centuries; some are of lesser intrinsic interest, more dated by historical context and theological circumstance, than others; some are dramatically uneven in spiritual quality, the most sublime sentiments coupled with theological and ethical barbarisms in the same text. Thus, in drawing inspiration from scriptural teachings as one of the sources of our faith, most Unitarian Universalists approach them more critically than do some orthodox Christians and Jews. Biblical literalists claim that the Bible is the transcript of God's word; biblical humanists are more likely to look beyond the letter to the spirit- the spirit of neighborliness, of kinship, of love.

...Some Unitarian Universalists, who still suffer from a religious education based on teachings from the Bible that inspired fear rather than love in their hearts, have little desire to return to the Bible and reclaim its essential teachings as part of their own faith. Others, Unitarian Universalist Christians, center their faith and their devotions on the scriptures. But however we gauge the nature of the Bible's authority, nearly all of us can embrace the principle of neighborliness at the heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition. From A Chosen Faith by Buehrens and Church, p. 131.