Manatee UU Fellowship NEWS

In my genealogy research I find a lot of trees that try desperately to claim famous people of history. And I get it, it is a boost to the ego to be able to claim this or that president or King or Queen as a direct ancestor. In my tree, there was a branch that if it was correct would have meant that I am a descendant of the Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him). It is not true, the evidence against this link is strong but sadly many have overlooked it. But the temptation to want to claim famous people of history is a strong one. We all want to have a connection to the history that shaped our worldview and if we can claim someone as one of ours then by osmosis it means we have inherited worth by association.Unitarian

Universalists do this as well. We like to name folks who are Unitarian Universalist, especially if they were movers and shakers of our collective past. We have many that we can indeed claim: John Adams, Jane Addams, Clara Barton, Theodore Parker, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. We claim them because they had wonderful achievements and shaped our world in uplifting ways. We claim them because they are known to the world at large and offer this small faith of our legitimacy.

And then there are those who we claim who were not. Thomas Jefferson is one of those individuals that Unitarian Universalists tend to claim because he said some nice things about Unitarians. We like the fact that his religious views were liberal for his day, that he cut out the miracle stories from the Bible to create a rational story of the Gospel. And most importantly, perhaps, that he wrote his thesis on Separation of Church and State to the Danbury Baptists, defending their right to not have to pay a poll tax to the state religion of Congregationalists. Unitarian Universalists are big in defending separation of church and state. It is an important value for a free faith.

But people are complicated. They are never just one thing. They are often a mix of things, sometimes conflicting things. Thomas Jefferson wrote that men are created equal and yet he owned slaves. And he took Sally Hemmings, a slave fathered by Jefferson’s father-in-law and therefore his wife’s half-sister, as his concubine. Hemmings did not have a choice. This was not a love relationship. This was slavery, she could not refuse him. Jefferson fathered six children with Hemmings, four of whom reached adulthood. Hemmings, when she was in France and was free, refused to return to the states with Jefferson. Jefferson negotiated a deal with her so that her future unborn children would be set free. A promise he kept. She was never freed.

The story of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, an American sacred text, includes his being a White Supremacist. We need to recognize this fact. In our quest to dismantle the white supremacist culture that Jefferson and others established in this country, we need to recognize the complexity of our past heroes. And what their complicated lives might mean to folks who are still seeking to be freed from these less admirable accomplishments.

I don’t believe my worth is inherited from my ancestors’ accomplishments — both for good and for ill. But I do need to recognize and acknowledge the harm they may have done. I also have the opportunity in this life to be an ancestor that future generations will look back on and say I am proud to claim him as a Unitarian Universalist and as an ancestor. May we all be role models as future ancestors.

Blessings.