Have you looked into Nadia Bolz-Weber's very heterodox variety of Lutheranism? It might appeal to you, or might very much not, but there is enough that rhymes between her account of her life and beliefs and yours that I'd be surprised if you didn't get something worthwhile out of engaging with her stuff.
ps - Thanks for the recommendation of Nadia! And wow, she’s incredibly popular on Substack but I’ve never heard of her before. This quote is on her website:
“God, please help me not be an asshole, is about as common a prayer as I pray in my life.”
It goes back to Jan Hus, a Czech priest who was burned at the stake in 1415. His main thing seems to have been that direct experience of God and scripture ought to be considered a source of truth over and above the Church, which in his day was particularly corrupt. He was given multiple chances to recant his views, including one final chance right before being burned alive, at which point he is claimed to have said, “In the same truth of the Gospel which I have written, taught, and preached, drawing upon the sayings and positions of the holy doctors, I am ready to die today.”
Here is Hus’s Wikipedia page ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Hus ) and here is an abridged version on a progressive/socialist website ( https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/today-in-history-jan-hus-burned-at-the-stake-600-years-ago/ ). According to these sources, in the immediate wake of Hus’s death, the then-Pope Martin V announced a crusade against his people. Thousands died. Then there were further crusades. I don't have the best understanding of the material political realities that corresponded to these spiritual conflicts, but there clearly were many; kings were involved and stuff. Later in the same century, after a lot of fighting, some of the ritual changes requested by Hus’s more moderate followers involving administration of the Eucharist were deemed acceptable by the church, though this was only after the Hussite moderates allied with the Catholics and threw the Hussite radicals under the bus. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utraquism )
About a century after Hus’s death, the religious reformer Martin Luther credited him as a major influence while kicking off the Reformation. Luther expressed his ideas in a manner similar to Hus, saying that Christians are saved by scripture alone, by faith alone, and by grace alone, rather than necessarily being saved by stuff the Church does.
Eventually, in 1999, Pope John Paul II expressed regret for what happened to Hus and praised Hus’s “moral courage.”
Hus's story can also be retold as follows:
Once upon a time, centuries ago, in the days of the Inquisition, there was a priest. In the years he was preaching, there was an expectation that one should only preach in Latin, but he knew his congregation did not understand Latin. He therefore chose to preach in the vernacular, in order that his congregants could better understand his words. He also shared communion generously, in a way that he knew would be perceived as heresy.
Upon learning of this heresy, the Inquisition burned the priest at the stake in front of his church, for all his congregation to see. Yet if their goal was to suppress his teachings then they failed, because he was remembered. There was a legend that his heart didn’t burn in the fire that killed him. He became a martyr, his heart a symbol, represented by the flaming chalice.
For centuries after our church formed in the late 1700s, Unitarian Universalists would take no symbol to represent ourselves. In the 1930s, given what was happening around the world, we felt the need to identify ourselves more clearly, and so this changed: We chose the flaming chalice.
(edited 2 minutes after posting, for clarity and to correct typos)
Have you looked into Nadia Bolz-Weber's very heterodox variety of Lutheranism? It might appeal to you, or might very much not, but there is enough that rhymes between her account of her life and beliefs and yours that I'd be surprised if you didn't get something worthwhile out of engaging with her stuff.
ps - Thanks for the recommendation of Nadia! And wow, she’s incredibly popular on Substack but I’ve never heard of her before. This quote is on her website:
“God, please help me not be an asshole, is about as common a prayer as I pray in my life.”
– Nadia Bolz-Weber
One of the historical connections between Unitarian Universalism and Lutheranism can be seen in the chalice symbol used by many UUs. I talked about this a bit in the endnotes on my 2022 post "Why I'm Not Christian But I Love Christianity" ( https://lydialaurenson.substack.com/p/why-im-not-christian-even-though-i-love-christianity-or-spirituality-and-bdsm ) but I'll reiterate it here because that post is paywalled -
It goes back to Jan Hus, a Czech priest who was burned at the stake in 1415. His main thing seems to have been that direct experience of God and scripture ought to be considered a source of truth over and above the Church, which in his day was particularly corrupt. He was given multiple chances to recant his views, including one final chance right before being burned alive, at which point he is claimed to have said, “In the same truth of the Gospel which I have written, taught, and preached, drawing upon the sayings and positions of the holy doctors, I am ready to die today.”
Here is Hus’s Wikipedia page ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Hus ) and here is an abridged version on a progressive/socialist website ( https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/today-in-history-jan-hus-burned-at-the-stake-600-years-ago/ ). According to these sources, in the immediate wake of Hus’s death, the then-Pope Martin V announced a crusade against his people. Thousands died. Then there were further crusades. I don't have the best understanding of the material political realities that corresponded to these spiritual conflicts, but there clearly were many; kings were involved and stuff. Later in the same century, after a lot of fighting, some of the ritual changes requested by Hus’s more moderate followers involving administration of the Eucharist were deemed acceptable by the church, though this was only after the Hussite moderates allied with the Catholics and threw the Hussite radicals under the bus. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utraquism )
About a century after Hus’s death, the religious reformer Martin Luther credited him as a major influence while kicking off the Reformation. Luther expressed his ideas in a manner similar to Hus, saying that Christians are saved by scripture alone, by faith alone, and by grace alone, rather than necessarily being saved by stuff the Church does.
Eventually, in 1999, Pope John Paul II expressed regret for what happened to Hus and praised Hus’s “moral courage.”
Hus's story can also be retold as follows:
Once upon a time, centuries ago, in the days of the Inquisition, there was a priest. In the years he was preaching, there was an expectation that one should only preach in Latin, but he knew his congregation did not understand Latin. He therefore chose to preach in the vernacular, in order that his congregants could better understand his words. He also shared communion generously, in a way that he knew would be perceived as heresy.
Upon learning of this heresy, the Inquisition burned the priest at the stake in front of his church, for all his congregation to see. Yet if their goal was to suppress his teachings then they failed, because he was remembered. There was a legend that his heart didn’t burn in the fire that killed him. He became a martyr, his heart a symbol, represented by the flaming chalice.
For centuries after our church formed in the late 1700s, Unitarian Universalists would take no symbol to represent ourselves. In the 1930s, given what was happening around the world, we felt the need to identify ourselves more clearly, and so this changed: We chose the flaming chalice.
(edited 2 minutes after posting, for clarity and to correct typos)