Sermon
May you live in interesting times. I don't know if this Chinese curse has been put on us by someone else or whether we have put it on ourselves. Whatever the source or the reason, and everyone has their favorite scapegoat, we are living in interesting times. They are times of great change and upheaval as the world becomes more and more globally linked. The fast growing global economy has everyone scrambling to keep up with its changes. Low skilled work is exported from the developed nations to the under-developed nations. Multinational corporations are growing bigger, stronger and less accountable to anyone besides their large share holders. In parallel with a greater concentration of wealth we see a breakdown of social order in the inner cities. Public institutions are suffering as a growing number of people express less and less faith in government solving our social problems. Whether by choice or necessity, we are gradually discovering the negative impact on children of having two parents over-committed to work. And outstripping any social trend is the incredible acceleration of our technology which is reshaping every aspect of our lives. I don't think I need say more to persuade you we are living in a time of tremendous change. And all this change is making people unhappy.
Some of this unhappiness is currently being directed at our government, especially in Washington. There is great dissatisfaction with the politics of both the left and the right. Into this climate of political realignment are coming new voices seeking new ways to structure society to address the pain and to ease our collective unhappiness. Into the political arena are coming religiously inspired voices calling for a change in public values.
The new politics we see emerging were really discovered and exploited by Christian fundamentalist groups like Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition until recently led by Ralph Reed. Catalyzed by the hippies of the `60's, the feminists of the `70's, and the gay rights movement in the `80's, they saw their system of literal Biblically based values and beliefs under attack. Not only did they see it under attack in their communities and especially in Washington, but also in their own congregations, families and children. Roe v. Wade was their call to arms. They decided to leave their traditional stance of political neutrality and focus on sin, salvation, conversion, the coming judgment day and glory and strike back.
The rise of the religious right has been watched carefully by Michael Lerner, author most recently of a book titled, The Politics of Meaning: Restoring Hope and Possibility in an Age of Cynicism . For ten years through a stress clinic offering counseling, stress management techniques and support to middle income and working class people in liberal Oakland, California, he watched their move away from the progressive agenda and into more conservative politics. As a former leader of the Radical Students for a Democratic Society this distressed him so he probed to find out why. He "quickly learned that [his] assumptions about middle income Americans were mistaken, prejudiced and elitist[1]." He saw a frustrated "hunger to serve the common good and to contribute something with their talents and energies, yet [often finding] that their actual work [gave] them little opportunity to do so[2]." He noticed that instead of turning that frustration outward and blaming society as was common among '60`s activists, these people turned their anger inward and blamed themselves because they believed they lived in a society based on merit. You get a good education, you work hard, and you get ahead and find satisfaction - right? With the fast pace of economic change, this isn't happening for a lot of folks. If one's job became replaced by a machine or made obsolete by the use of computers, one can feel suddenly devalued by society and needing to find a new line of work. Lerner thinks this depersonalizing of the workplace which is changing how we see ourselves can result in a loss of meaning in our lives.
Lerner dug deeper into what are the systemic reasons for this loss of meaning and came up with materialism, selfishness and cynicism which he claims are derivatives of the secular market based economy. Capitalism may be efficient in distributing goods and services but has social liabilities. Undesirable byproducts include individual isolation as each competes for his or her own advantage, an obsession with consuming more and more and feeling less and less full, and a wounded idealism turned to defensive hopelessness and bitter resignation. Lerner believes that the liberal values of a market driven economy work against the forces of social cohesion of the family and the community. He sees the market driven primarily by selfishness of investors looking out for number one which drives the corporate engine.
The religious conservatives also see this trend toward materialism, cynicism and selfishness and denounces it. But instead of blaming greedy corporations as Lerner does, their whipping boy is greedy government and immoral minorities who do not subscribe to their theology or morality. The Religious right appeals to the downsized worker or the person caught in the changing social and economic climate and tells them, it isn't your fault--blame someone else for your problems. "We know the white lower and middle class has been hurt and you deserve better treatment." Lerner summarizes the conservative argument which frames people's dissatisfaction in racist, sexist and homophobic directions (often heard on talk radio) as follows:
"The reason you are being denied recognition, love, and meaning is that the liberals have given these scarce commodities to someone else, and they've set up society in such a way that these others will get what you badly need. It's only if we dismantle [liberal] government and the programs that they've created to benefit these special interests that you, the American majority, have any chance of getting the caring you deserve but which these liberals and their various client groups are withholding from you[3]."
Both the liberals and the conservatives tend to frame our social problems in economic arguments assuming there is a limited pie that must be divided up and if one group gets more pie "the rest of us" get less. Liberals rail against the rich who are getting too much pie and the conservatives rail against the leftist groups and their clients who are raiding the pie. These new religiously inspired thinkers aren't seeing the solution to people's dilemmas caused by the tremendous rate of change in our society in baking a bigger pie and/or giving one group more of it. The solution that the Religious Right, Lerner and others are offering us today isn't based on economic solutions but rather moral and social ones.
The solutions the Religious Right has to offer require looking backward to the good old days when all Americans were Christian and everyone lived in a small town, knew their neighbors and worshipped together on Sunday morning. Our future, they think, will be found in returning to the common sense, rural values learned on the farm and taught in the Bible. The Biblical values of our Founding Fathers have been lost and need to be restored.
What is surprising about Lerner's thinking, given his liberal background and upbringing, is that he too feels the need for common beliefs and values that come from a deeper place than a social contract or mutual toleration. He too calls for a politics centered in a Biblically inspired religious awareness that we are children of a God who seek to bring more love into the world through us and our actions. Just as we need food, clothing and shelter and meaningful work and relationships, we hunger for a sense of meaningful participation in the larger cosmos. The meaning we are looking for isn't found in the accumulation of things to possess but rather in the development of our ethical and spiritual life.
In the development of one's religious life, a sense of the holy, or spritual awareness or the ethical conviction of the worth and dignity of all life are universal human values not locked up in the doctrines of a particular church, religious tradition or sect. There are universal values which span all the great religious traditions. Lerner criticizes the modern multicultural approach which rejects universal beliefs and values. While Lerner, recently ordained a Rabbi, finds in the Hebrew Scriptures the grounding for his religiously inspired politics, he finds similar ground supporting other religious traditions as well. Fortunately, I don't think the Religious Christian Right and Lerner are reading on the same Biblical pages. There are many values and theologies expressed in the Bible which gives Lerner latitude to go to the prophets and see in them a call for a public life ruled by love and caring without dwelling on the Fundamentalists favorite "eye for an eye" texts they use to justify their regressive politics.
Lerner has some insightful analysis[4] of why the Right has been attractive to the masses and gained so much power and influence. He notes that fundamentalist churches often use emotion to create a pleasurable ecstatic experience for their worshippers which fills them with a self-validating experience of the divine, the energy of life. This energizing experience creates a sense of meaning which is often missing from their world of work or from the ambivalence of personal and familial relationships.
Lerner feels the positive personal experiences found in fundamentalist churches are conditional on their theology of surrender to God. If that surrender is total, the individual will find this joy and relief from the suffering built into our modern world. Lerner worries surrendering to the authority of the God as interpreted by the church does not encourage them to challenge the harmful social institutions or the hierarchies of power which may not be just. The theology of surrender often isn't compatible with an active vision of social justice. Those of us who don't believe in a fundamentalist view of a God who is pulling the strings to make sure the good are rewarded and the evil punished must participate in making justice possible with--or without--God.
Thinking about a politics organized around love and caring is a little like thinking of the lion lying down with the lamb or Sadaam Hussein voluntarily giving up all his chemical weapons. Under the veneer of civility we may witness on C-SPAN's broadcast of the Senate and House Floor, there is an endless struggle for power, influence and control. Politics, particularly on the world stage is might against muscle with the bullets flying and the strong taking advantage of the weak. From this perspective, a politics of love and caring seems almost laughable. When Hillary Clinton used the phrase, "Politics of Meaning" and Lerner briefly was on the public stage in 1993, he was quickly dismissed and ridiculed even by the liberal press.
While the cynics might laugh off a love and caring centered politics, I bring this idea before you because I think the idea has merit. I think it has merit partly because the eventual proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons will limit our ability to effectively use imperialistic policies as we and other developed countries have done in the past around the world. Here at home, the alienation from the public sphere is partly a reaction to partisan politics. We have so much more information now about how governing is done and can see more clearly than ever how much it serves the elites and not the common person or our society. I sense in the alienation there might be a window opening for another kind of politics.
The non-violent politics of Gandhi and Martin Luther King changed the political landscape. Power, racism and oppression lost to a call for justice and a unity of love and caring. While power still squashes non-violent protests frequently, when the will of the protesters is strong and they are willing to die for their cause, the powerful can be defeated. Love can conquer hatred and fear.
What might a politics centered on love and caring look like? Lerner admits he doesn't know--much as the early feminists meeting in coffee klatches didn't know what the results of their dissatisfied conversation might be. Lerner comments that if Betty Friedan had been asked early on how the women's movement could be best won, she probably would have shrugged her shoulders. Any mass movement takes shape and form from the personalities of the people involved and the challenges to be faced.
Lerner, of course, has many suggestions for the directions the movement may take. In his book, he presents these five goals:
Whether or not you find his goals attractive, they are clearly grounded in values we Unitarian Universalists cherish such as the inherent worth and dignity of all people; justice, equity and compassion in human relations; a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, respect for the interdependent web of existence and our roots in Jewish and Christian religious and ethical teachings. What we value has a place in the politics of our times and the Politics of Meaning may become an effective vehicle for us to advance our values as part of the public discourse.
I think of Unitarian Universalism as a religion which is often 20 to 40 years ahead of where the rest of the country is. Because of our emphasis on the individual and our willingness to explore new ideas, intellectual trends often come to birth and gain encouragement from our participation. We led in the Abolitionist movement, were in the front lines of the Civil Rights and feminist movement, and are breaking new ground on how to be an inclusive religion. Historically Unitarians and Universalists took the lead in supporting public education, rehabilitation of criminals and quality care for the poor and mentally ill. We have been and will continue to be engaged in this loving and caring work as we strive to make our society more just and compassionate.
So I heartily welcome a call for a politics of love and care since it is at the center of what we are already doing. The pendulum has swung a little too far in the direction of freedom and individualism and needs to swing back toward mutual responsibility and the community. Lerner will be speaking at General Assembly this year and I hope we can find ways to partner with his work as it affirms both of our goals. Politics and Religion do and must mix to balance the ever increasing secular power of the corporations, the military, and governmental organizations around the world which often act in ways which threatens and reduces our humanity. Unfortunately, our friends in the Religious Right see the same problems but have too often exclusive, judgmental and authoritarian solutions rather than inclusive, just and loving ones.
In reality of course, no one has all the answers. It is a full and rich dialogue between the right, left and center, secular and religious which will help us find our way. May we all be encouraged to participate in the public conversation here within these walls then go beyond it and create a little more love and care in this hurting world.
Copyright (c) 1997 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore. All rights reserved.
[1] Lerner, Michael, The Politics of Meaning: Restoring Hope and Possibility in an Age of Cynicism, Addison-Wesley, 1996, p. 5
[2] Lerner, p. 5
[3] Lerner, p. 46.
[4] Lerner pp. 72-75