July 4, 2004
Rev. Dr. Frank Carpenter,
D.Min.
St. John's Unitarian Universalist Church, Cincinnati, OH
May we gather in the spirit of gratitude for this company of fellow seekers. We gather as we know we are less than perfect. May our fellowship be a circle of forgiveness. May we ever be ready to hear those who point out to us that our ambitions and desires blind us to the good we seek in our lives.
We listen to the joys and concerns which each brings. We hold in our thoughts those who are concerned for their health. We smile with joy with the progress of children and celebrations of families. We treasure the hopes of one another.
May the wide expanse of our compassion reach to all the strange and extreme places of our humanity. May we be mindful this hour of the tensions and struggles of daily life. Today so many people find balancing the demands of work and family a daily trial. May we keep in perspective the various alarms about the possibilities of terrorists strikes. May a reasoned acceptance of our vulnerabilities remind us that the greatest threat to our lives is how we respond to what happens, not what happens. May we be mindful of the various struggles for hope and justice across our home planet. May we be mindful that we are better off than most people.
In gratitude and hope for all humanity, may we ever be ready to serve our fellows. May we maintain a healthy skepticism about those who claim either directly or through body language to be better than we are. And may we not get carried away with our own fine qualities. In this hour may we refresh our self acceptance.
Let us sit quietly with ourselves.
America's Greatness by Alexis de Tocqueville
On this July 4th, I want to take as my theme the remark from our reading by Alexis de Tocqueville that "America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."
To my mind this immediately raises the question, what does it mean to be good? And my remarks this morning are aimed at alerting you, or at least reminding you, that we here in this room, and in America, are at some risk as regards the answer.
To be somewhat reductive, there are two primary responses to what it means that America is good. I call one the salvational perspective, the other, the human rights perspective.
I want to consider first the salvational understanding of American goodness. We may see it in a response to the attacks of 9/11. On a broadcast of the Christian television program "The 700 Club," Jerry Falwell made the following statement:
I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen'. [link]
In this salvational point of view, for America to be good, it must be made up of the saved, of saints. One of the struggles to realize this vision of American good is the debate over marriage.
Today, Harvard Divinity school Professor, Diana Eck, is marrying her partner of 28 years, Dorothy Austin, who is an associate minister of Harvard University's Memorial Church. Both women, minister and religious scholar, emphasize that the Massachusetts court gave gay couples the right to a "civil marriage," not a "sacred marriage." Indeed, says Eck, in the most religiously diverse nation in the world "it's important we get that distinction right."
Do those opposed to gay marriage, those whose understanding of a good America is a saved America, get the distinction right? Sometime during the week of July 12, a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage will come before the U.S Senate with an endorsement of the Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention. Meanwhile, Jerry Falwell has sent out missives telling preachers to "lift up the God-ordained institution of marriage in their ceremonies" by fighting same-sex marriage. The marriage amendment is an attempt to write into law a particular religious view of marriage.
A different perspective I call human rights. In line with the Universalist Declaration of Human Rights, this point of view recognizes the individual freedom of belief. This is recognized in Article VI of the Constitution of these United States, which says, “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” [link]
This is of course being tested. There's renewed concern across the religious spectrum that ties between church and government can be too close, posing risks to both. A week ago, the Anti-Defamation League objected to a reference to America as "a Christian nation" in the new party platform of the Texas Republican Party. [link]
We speak of the relationship of church and state in our native land as a “separation of church and state.” I think this is often conflated with a separation of religion and politics. Such is, I believe, to misunderstand the perspective of the framers of our Constitution. They knew well that politics and religion are entangled, and that indeed at some primary level of human experience may well be identical. It was exactly because of the entanglement of religious and political thought that they established an institutional separation of the two, speaking as Jefferson did of a wall of separation, recognizing the right of freedom of religion.
I understand the separation of church and state by the framers as an application of their over all approach of separation of powers. Few people understood the problems and tendencies of power better than the architects of the United Sates Constitution. (Cousins, p 49). The strategy for dealing with the tendencies of power is to separate powers, seeking a balance of powers. This is a most critical issue for us, for Americans, today to understand.
Most recently this strategy in the Constitution to limit power was applied in the Supreme Court cases regarding the so-called enemy combatants. In one of the major Supreme Court decisions, the justices ruled 8-1 that U.S.-born citizen and enemy combatant Yaser Hamdi could not be detained without giving him a way to challenge the government's evidence. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote "The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive." [link]
This same strategy of separating powers of legislative, judicial and executive the Constitution applies to church and state.
Why?
We are back to our question as to what makes America good. The separation of powers in the Constitution, the separation of church and state is based on an understanding of what it means for human being to be good, and the impact of power on virtue. To put it simply, the framers believed that power corrupts and absolutely power corrupts absolutely.
Their reading of history taught them that good government required much more than the presence of good people in public office. Good government, as those gathered in Philadelphia saw it, called for effective brakes on the exercise of power. While power needed to be exercised, authority also needs to be surrounded with essential restraints and constraints. Even good people, they believed, have a tendency to use whatever power they have to shield themselves from the consequences of their errors. The solution applied calls for a separation of powers which requires accountability and collaboration.
Religion is among the most powerful influences in human life. The framers had learned this lesson well and so called for a separation of the powers of church and state. Their reading of history revealed age long wars over religion, so they sought to prevent any view of religion to take control of our government.
We may learn the same lesson today from global religious strife. University of Chicago Divinity school professor Martin E. Marty recently recounted:
Try The New York Times from Wednesday, June 16. Page one: "The specter of sectarian strife coursed through the streets of Baghdad" as hundreds of furious Shiite Muslims accused a hard-line Sunni cleric for ordering the deaths of six Shiite truck drivers. Pages three and four: "Violence in Kashmir invades a most sacred space" and a man is killed while kneeling at prayer amidst the fighting of Islamic insurgents and Hindus. In Nigeria, "churches and mosques" were razed in a daily tit-for-tat war between Muslim and Christian militants, as "overwhelmingly Christian" and Fulani Muslim herders kill each other in "the cycle of vengeance."
In France, an Islamic cleric and some followers were arrested because their "fundamentalist mosque" was a headquarters for fighters against secularism in France. In Norway, authorities dropped charges against, but keep trying to expel, a Kurdish Islamic fundamentalist firebrand. In Pakistan, a Sunni leader accused of murderous attacks against Shiites was arrested.
In the "ecumenical absurdist" category, this year of all years, we read that the Vatican claims that "fewer heretics were tortured and fewer witches were burned at the stake during the Inquisition than is generally believed." (Apparently only 1.8 percent of the arrested were burned). Pope John Paul II asked for forgiveness, but wanted precision about the fact that 98.2 percent suffered short of death. The Southern Baptist Convention pulled out of an international organization critical of the United States, God's favored people, calling it liberal and "anti-American." [link]
It is no wonder that some people regard religion as dangerous to our health. Do all religions tend to strife?
I would like to think that we Unitarian Universalists are inclined to peace, not war. Many Christian denominations, Quakers, Mennonites are peace churches. Some would argue that those are not true representatives of Christianity. Pat Robertson would say that. Early American liberal Christianity, founded by William Ellery Channing and other Unitarians, sought a middle way between orthodox Christianity, war making Christianity, and infidelity. They argued that “The outrages of orthodoxy bred infidelity.” [Dorrien, xxi] They hoped that when Christianity embraced the Enlightenment's legacy, ethical humanism and the liberating value of reason, then both orthodoxy and infidelity would disappear.
Of course both exist in modern garb, denying a third way, a middle form of peaceful Christianity such as our friends at the Methodist church down the street. While once liberal Christianity was in the ascendancy, today it is fundamentalism.
There are many forms of fundamentalism. Its preachers call for a good America, a straight America. They deny communion to a politician who supports abortion rights, while they have no problem with a politician who is for the death penalty, which is also against church law.
Given the many forms of Christian fundamentalism, I only want to mention a few features which seem relevant this morning to defining what their view of a good American would be.
The central dogma of fundamentalism is the inerrancy of scripture. It's literal truth. This has always struck me as a confusing and incoherent doctrine. Consider two points.
Firstly, which version of the Bible is inerrant – without error – and to be read literally? For many long years it was the 1611 King James version of the Bible which was the inerrant text. Then, fundamentalists began to hear that King James was gay. Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council was horrified, saying
I feel uncomfortable that good Christians all over America and indeed the world, are using a document commissioned by a homosexual. Anything that has been commissioned by a homosexual has obviously been tainted in some way. ( Blaker, p 26).
Since that discovery there has been a sort of free-for-all in trying to figure out which version is inerrant, not bad if some of the original Bible material catches in your craw anyways.
Yet the whole concept of an inerrant Bible is incoherent at best. Consider what is the most familiar verse from the Bible heard numerous times in church. Wouldn’t that be inerrant? So you would think.
But it’s not, this most used verses from the Bible. While I lived in Dallas, Texas, I came to hear of W. A Criswell, granddaddy of the Biblical inerrantists and pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas. When I was there they had over 20,000 members, including the Texas Cowboys. He wrote a book on Biblical inerrancy and taking the Bible literally. He said that the entire Bible was inerrant and to be taken literally.
Well, no, not quite all.
There are a few verses that should not be taken literally.
What verses should not be taken literally? What verses would you not take literally? Criswell says we should not take literally the verse where Jesus says “This is my Blood.” It’s not literally his blood. Where Jesus says, “this is my flesh…” No, not literally. These verses are the most used Biblical verses, the basis of Christian ritual, yet they are not to be taken literally!? Why then the rest?
Inerrancy is a defining doctrine of fundamentalism. Patriarchal doctrines about the family are a second area I want to say a few words about. I have mentioned the Bible based fundamentalist attitudes towards GLBT people. They claim Biblical authority for what they call family values. While the Old Testament assumed polygamy as the norm, they have not argued for that.
The role of women is a concern however. As but a brief example, let me quote from a change in the Baptist Faith and Message. The Southern Baptist Church had not changed its Faith and Message for thirty five years. Then on June 9, 1998, it adopted a new Article 18, which reads, in part, “A wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband.” Such a statement is a denial of the human rights of women. Today, women more than men feel the conflicting demands of family and work. Such dogma aggravates this conflict.
The rights of children? The greatest surprise to me in researching this sermon was the discovery that fundamentalists are against Ritalin. Ritalin is one of the standards drugs used in the treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivety disorder. Apparently their complaint is that the children should behave themselves regardless of their brain chemistry. The Christian Right has been able to shape public opinion in this debate. Children with AD/HD have been stigmatized, a tactic they used with AIDS/HIV. Various legislation has been drawn up and is before state legislators, such a censoring teachers’ communications with parents about behavior that would undermine detection of AD/HD. [Blaker18ff]
Anti-gay? Anti women? Anti-children? Anti-public school. It is beyond me how this all adds up to pro-family.
It is not just control of the family that the Christian Right seeks. They want control of the government. Theocracy, rule of the saints as the Puritans called it, rule of the saved as it might be called on the largest TV network in the United States, Pat Robertson’s Trinity Broadcasting Network. The saints are not subject to the corruptions of power. Whatever the saints do is good, for it is the saints that do it.
Consider what Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, says on the subject:
I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good… Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty: we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want pluralism.’ (Blaker, page 25)
The saints, the saved are not interested in human rights.
Early this spring there was a message making its way through various Unitarian Universalist email lists that the Comptroller of the State of Texas had denied tax exemption to a Unitarian Universalist congregation. While some of the conversation was a bit excited, it focused attention on the Lone Star State. A variety of sources directed my attention to the 2002 Platform of the Texas Republican Party. Among other things, we read there that “The Republican Party of Texas reaffirms the United States of America is a Christian nation, which was founded on fundamental Judeo-Christian principles based on the Holy Bible.” The Texas Platform goes on to call for “dispel[ing] the myth of the separation of Church and State. We support the right of individuals and state and local governments to display the Ten Commandments on public property subject to their control.”
Is the United States of America a Christian nation, or has it ever been? Allow me to simply defer to President and the Congress of the United States. On November 4th, 1796, the United States signed a treaty in Tripoli with the Barbary pirates, which was passed by more than two thirds of the Senate. The treaty reads, in part:
"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,--as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,--and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." [link] [link] [link]
Washington gave the same commitment to the Jews in Newport in 1790.
Those who affirmed this treaty, John Adams and patriots of the Revolution, were much the same as those who framed our Constitution. They did not think that this nation was based on the Bible. Neither did they think that it was sufficient for this country to be great for it to be ruled by good people, even if those good people proclaimed themselves sainted or saved. They knew that religion was a source of hate, as well as love. Power corrupts even the best and brightest.
What of the tax exemption of the Unitarian congregation in Texas? Davidson Loehr, Minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin, Texas, had an op-ed piece in the Austin American Statesman two weeks ago. He noted that on the same day that the Texas comptroller, Carole Keeton Strayhorn reversed her decision on the matter, a well known member of the Austin press also died.
This well known member of the Austin press was, as it happens, a member of First UU in Austin. Two days after reversing her decision, the Texas comptroller attended the funeral for this person at the Austin UU church. In his op-ed piece, Loehr regretted that Strayhorn did not attend more services at the church to experience the wide variety of sources we draw on, pagan and Asian among them. A diversity of sources, I would argue, that exemplifies our commitment to human rights.
I have not addressed the question, “Does America exist?” Rather I have spoken to the question of American greatness, in the words of de Tocqueville, asking, is America good. We might also ask, does might make right, or right might?
Does America exist? It exists where it always has, in the hearts and minds of “We, the people..” Today, not just in the hearts of those who live in Cincinnati or Erlanger, but also in Baghdad, Caracas, and Beijing.
America exists in your hearts and minds only as it is worthy of existing there.
I pray that you will take it as your responsibility to continue to inform yourselves on these matters.
Norman Cousins, PATHOLOGY OF POWER, New York, W. W. Norton, 1987.
Kimberly Blaker, editor, THE FUNDAMENTALS OF EXTREMISM: The Christian Right In America, New Boston Books, 2003.