I admit it: I am not a good loser. Like many of you, I was bummed out at the results of the election. Alas, it is a feeling I know all too well. Like anyone who has been engaged in politics over several decades, I have experienced plenty of grim Wednesday mornings in early November. I remember as a young man the frustration and anger I felt when Richard Nixon was re-elected during the Vietnam War.
Mostly, I have learned to sulk for a day or two and then get over it and move on. Sometimes the results are especially painful. Sometimes the loss feels like more than simply being in the minority on a public policy issue. Once in a while the loss feels personal.
I had such an intense feeling a decade ago when my community in Oregon passed a mean spirited and clearly unconstitutional anti-gay measure. The measure itself was ridiculous. It was a city charter amendment that would prevent our little city from giving "special rights" to gays. "Like what?" I asked in my editorial. A special right like a longer grace period on overdue library books? Cheaper water rates if you can prove you are gay? As publisher of the local paper I had been a leading advocate of the opposition, but we were crushed at the polls. That campaign was shockingly bitter and divisive - and it is hard to shock a veteran newspaper publisher. That initiative was one of many in Oregon sponsored by the religious right.
What made this week's election particularly frightening, and something more painful than just coming out on the short end of the tally, was the fact that the religious right appears to have swung the election. Millions of people were motivated to turn out and vote for initiatives to ban gay marriage and civil union. This probably was decisive in the presidential election. Religion, fundamentalist, reactionary, anti-intellectual religion, played a critical role. And because of that we can expect that the religious right will play a critical role in the coming years in all kinds of government decisions. Fundamentalist religious leaders are exultant today, with good reason.
What we are seeing in America is a dangerous mixture of extreme nationalism, militarism and reactionary religion. These three, nationalism, militarism and conservative religion are the essential elements of fascism. What we are seeing is a disturbing rise of an American neo-fascism, and reactionary religion is the cornerstone. We see it in the willingness to scapegoat elements of the population like gays and lesbians (to say nothing of "liberals," and recent immigrants) and the willingness to sacrifice individual rights to protect us from the infidel enemy. All of this is propelled by fear and ignorance, fear and ignorance that are manipulated by cynics and ideologues.
What we are witnessing is not the classic divide between liberal and conservative politics. Sadly, classic conservatives are being marginalized and silenced. Classic conservatism is an important voice that we need to hear in political debate. Classic conservatives like Republicans from a generation ago in the northeastern states or like Oregon senators Mark Hatfield, Bob Packwood and Wayne Morse, brought an important perspective to public policy debate. They counseled fiscal accountability, they cautioned against the dangers of large government, they brought a healthy skepticism to the optimistic claims of new social program initiatives. They warned about the dehumanizing effects of dependency on government. Classic conservatives brought a principled distrust of concentration of power. They respected traditional institutions and were guardians of traditional arrangements like the separation of church and state and civil liberties.
We are not witnessing a victory for a conservative philosophy of government. We are witnessing, I fear, a radical and reactionary neo fascism that has religious fanaticism at its core. It is deeply, deeply troubling. As I look at the news, as I look at human history, I cannot help but see that religion has been at the center of so much that is evil. Each day we see religious zealots feeling perfectly justified in killing others simply for being part of a different religious or ethnic group.
Our reading from the Bible this morning is one of many grisly accounts of the name of God being used to justify wanton killing. The slaughter thousands of women and children is somehow all right because God told them they could do it. Or, more accurately, the leader purporting to speak for God told them it was all right.
During the conquest of Peru by the Spanish, a Spanish friar was sent to the Inca ruler at Cajamarca in the Andes. The friar handed the Inca emperor, Atahuallpa, a copy of the Bible and told him to submit to Christianity and the Catholic church (as if Atahuallpa could read Latin). For that matter, probably none of the Spaniards except perhaps the priest could read it. When Atahuallpa refused, the Spaniards began their bloody attack. They had religious sanction to kill tens of thousands of Incas in the name of God. Religion let them feel self righteous about looting the Inca treasure.
Examples abound. Religion truly has a dirty past, and it has a dirty present. What is it about religion that allows it to become a tool for hatred, violence, fear and oppression?
Religious history presents us with mind boggling contrasts. So much human liberation has come about because women and men of faith sacrificed to make their vision of God's love a reality. Consider Ghandi. His motivation was deeply religious. Think of Martin Luther King, Jr., who not only was minister but who also used the church as an institution to further human rights. The movement to end slavery in this country was initiated and sustained by religious people. So was the movement to bring the vote and civil rights to women. Many of these religious champions of justice were Unitarians and Universalists. During slavery and during the struggle for the vote for women reactionary religious leaders justified slavery and the oppression of women as God's will.
Religion is linked with what is best and with what is worst in humanity. How can this be?
It goes back, I believe, to the very origins of religion. Cultural anthropologists tell us that people living in small bands as hunters and gathers, the way most humans have lived throughout history, had nothing we would call a religion. Oh, they had beliefs about the supernatural, but these beliefs had nothing to do with how people treated each other. There were no separate priestly roles.
As societies grew beyond small bands and tribes and into chiefdoms, religion as we would recognize it was born. Religion did a number of things. It combined the beliefs about the supernatural into a system of belief that justified the existence of a hereditary ruling class. Think of the divine right of kings. Think of all the people in America today who believe God chooses our leaders. Religion at its very origin is a system of belief that serves to legitimize unequal power and unequal wealth.
This is religion's original sin. Religion was born as a way to cloak the ruling elite with the aura of supernatural approval. Justifying oppression and inequality is in religion's DNA.
However, religion performed another critical function in early societies. As societies grew beyond small bands where everyone was related by blood or marriage, religion gave people a kind of common extended family. Religion served to unify people. Religion drew a larger circle than the family. It is in this extending of the circle beyond the family that we see the seed of religion as a source of caring for others and a source of ethical standards (Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, etc).
Alas, the circle of inclusion religion created typically embraced members of the small society and excluded others. Those outside the circle were considered enemies, infidels worshipping false gods, people who deserved to be killed and plundered. Our violent reading this morning reveals this stage of development: people with a tribal god that excludes those outside the tribe.
Only very recently in human history, with the rise of the prophetic tradition of the Hebrews, with the Buddha in the east, with the ministry of Jesus, that religion began, at least for some, to mean the inclusion of everyone. Our first principle as Unitarian Universalists is to affirm the worth and dignity of every person. This idea was unthinkable for most of human history.
At its finest, religion is an expression of humanity's realization that we are all part of the same creation, that at some level we are all family. The seed of this conviction began as beliefs moved from simply explaining the natural and supernatural world and religion began to deal with how we should treat each other. The circle gradually grew inclusive. It went beyond band or clan. Eventually it came to mean those of my tribe and my country. At long last some visionaries came to sense we are all connected, every one of us. At the highest levels, there is the sense that we are connected to all of creation, including the nonhuman and including all eternity. So religion, like you and me, can be descend into unspeakable violence or it can ascend to mystical union with all creation.
Religion has a dirty past, and that past is always present. The reactionary impulse to find a scapegoat, to demonize the stranger, to seek divine legitimation for a ruler, to see those outside our religious group as dangerous infidels is, in a sense, a return to religion's most primitive impulses.
Our task, as people who seek to be faithful to that vision of a wider circle that includes all beings, is to work to make our larger, gentler and more compassionate vision prevail. It won't happen easily. It won't happen right away. But it can and it must happen. And it can only happen if you and I dedicate ourselves to making it a reality.
How can we help create a new reality? How do we help overcome religion's dirty past and dirty present? There are many ways. Here are a few.
First, we come together as we have this morning to reaffirm that vision. This is what it means to worship together: it means to reaffirm the worth of compassion and understanding. We remind ourselves of that larger vision contained in all traditions and we rededicate ourselves to being disciples of that vision. We cultivate, in any number of ways, practices that keep us connected to that sense of connection and love. From this we draw strength, comfort, and resolve.
Second, I believe we continue to work at being what we want to see. We work to make this a community where the circle is wide and attempts to draw everyone in. We make ours a community of passionate devotion to life lived in pursuit of that larger vision of compassion and connection. We create the future every day in the way we treat each other and in the way we treat strangers.
Finally, and this is absolutely essential, we must take our larger vision into the world. This is not easy. The world is hostile, broken, afraid, ignorant, angry and hurt.
We have done much to take our vision into the world, but we must do much more. We religious liberals have been naïve about how hard this is going to be. I think we need to engage others in new ways. I know many of you will disagree with me, but I believe we need to less "nice" and less polite in public debate. Orthodox Christians are taught to love the sinner but hate the sin. It is a good lesson. We need to respect other people, but some points of view that others are thrusting into the public arena merit no respect whatsoever. They need to be exposed for the mindless and dangerous nonsense that they are.
For example, the position that creationism deserves to be taught alongside evolutionary biology because both are equally "scientific" does not merit thoughtful debate. It is a plain tactic to shove a particular religious myth down children's throats. The same is true for shoving a prayer and the ten commandments and the rest down others' throats. We need expose it, and we need to be loud, persistent, stubborn and incorrigible.
We need to expose the narrow "moral values" of fundamentalism for the unbiblical bigotry that it is. Too much is at stake for us to be politely silent.
We have done much to join hands with other religious groups. But we need to do even more. And let me say that the majority of people who call themselves Christians in this nation are not reactionary neo fascists. They are kind and charitable people. They are our natural allies. We need to do even more to join hands with them. We share a common vision; we must make common cause.
On a personal note, I realize that I must devote more of my time as your minister to these efforts. I have been thinking a lot about this lately. It will mean a little less time for working on ministry among our members, but I need to do more to carry our message into the community. We all do.
Religion can be either a force for great good in our world or a force for unspeakable harm. Religion can teach compassion and help put it into practice, or it can teach fear and hatred. Religion has a dirty past. In a very real sense, religion was born in sin. And much of religion's present is none too clean. That past need not control the future. Religion has another side. Religion can help us all experience a profound and enduring connection to all humanity and to the source of life and love.
The future can be one of fear, ignorance and violence in which religion serves to sanction hatred and killing. Or the future can bend, slowly, steadily, relentlessly toward peace, understanding, compassion and healing. This can only happen if you and I and millions of people who share our vision rededicate ourselves toward widening the circle of inclusion and rededicate ourselves to joining our hands to work for that new world waiting to be born.
Let us not lose heart. Together we can do this. We absolutely must do this. Let the sulking end and the hard work begin. Let us join our hands and our hearts as we begin again today.P
Amen
