Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

UU Collective

Home
New Visions
The Transient, the Permanent, and the Stitching Horse: What Remains True in Religions

The Transient, the Permanent, and the Stitching Horse: What Remains True in Religions

Last updated on: March 20, 2015 at 6:56 am by David Breeden

The Transient, the Permanent, and the Stitching Horse: What Remains True in Religions 2015-03-20T06:56:44-06:00 David Breeden

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

When I was a kid, I loved wandering in the barn on my grandfather’s farm. The barn had been built around a two-story log house. In the loft of the barn was a jumble of old farming equipment. My favorite piece of equipment there was what was known as a stitching horse. This was a bench used for harness repair.

A stitching horse consisted of a wooden bench with a pair of wooden arms about two feet long. By stepping on a pedal under the bench, one could squeeze and release the wooden arms. This served as an extra pair of hands when fixing the leather harness for horse farming. What amazed me most about the stitching horse was how old it must have been, yet it was still in working order. The stitching horse had only one problem, one reason for being in the loft of a barn rather than in a workshop: on our farm, the stitching horse had outlived its usefulness. We were farming with tractors. Everything was made of steel. (Stitching horses are still used for leather working, btw.)

My grandfather’s ingenious stitching horse still worked perfectly well. But it was an excellent answer to a question that wasn’t being asked anymore on our farm.

MAYBE A GOOD IDEA IS ALWAYS HERESY

In the early 1840s, just when Transcendentalism was stealing the younger generation from Unitarian churches, Unitarian minister Theodore Parker wrote a sermon he called “Discourse on the Transient and Permanent in Religion.”

Parker claimed that religious thinking changes over time. Scripture—the bible—, for example, was to Parker a transient means of delivering the truth and had for the most part outlived its usefulness. All the accretions—the miracles and miraculous stories—were antique and needed to be consigned to the loft.

The permanent, Parker argued, consisted of the ethical ideas in scripture that could lead each person toward a deeper understanding of meaning and purpose. (In this, Parker was much like Thomas Jefferson, who took a razor to the Christian scriptures in an attempt to make a text that was not offensive to basic good sense.) Parker’s ideas were heresy to the old white guys who made up his ministerial fellows. And a breath of fresh air to the upstart Transcendentalists.

A hundred and seventy-five years later, Parker’s is still a heretical proposition. In most Unitarian Universalist congregations other scriptures have been added to the Christian ones—Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and what-have-you, but the old contention remains: that traditions—scriptures and religions—of the past contain truth and therefore must be studied and respected. Isn’t this view saying, “yes, we may have implements made of steel, but you have to use that stitching horse when you work on them”?

RESPECT THE STITCHING HORSE!

What is permanent is the human condition. Not the religions that human beings have invented to cope with the human condition. The situation remains the same: the seeds must go into the ground before we can have a harvest. The means of sowing those seeds, however, keeps changing.

Time has shown that Parker was correct, and even more correct than he knew: more and more of religious traditions show their transience with time. The once ubiquitous stitching horse is now an antique or a speciality device.

What’s transient and what’s permanent? Truth appears in all human religions in the same way that utility resides in all human tools: that’s what they’re designed to do, religions—grapple with the truth of the human condition.

Yet the only truth that religions communicate are truths of the human heart. Truths concerning meaning and purpose and right action. So, what are the truths of religions? What’s permanent? You. Your essence. Your human essence. Is that enough? Well . . . it has to be.

Because that’s all we get.

Previous Post

March 12, 2015

Humanism and a Theology of Liberation (Without Strangling Priests)

Next Post

March 26, 2015 Religious Arguments: Where Are the Grownups?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category #9/11 Abortion Class community conflict Digital Life Diversity Divorce Environmental issues Evangelism Faith Development Foregiveness Garden glbt Gratitude Grief Healing health care Holidays Hospitality Interfaith LGBT Issues Military Service Mortality Orlando Parenting Peace Politics Power Prayer Racism Relationships Religion Scripture Senior citizens Sermons simplicity Social Justice Spirituality Sports Sustainability Uncategorized Unitarian Universalist Values Women's Issues World Community Worship

Select a Month August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does "Rabbi" mean?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Scribe Teacher Messenger Priest