Politics and Religion
Adapted from a sermon by Peter Morales, Senior Minister
November 5, 2000
I still remember the first time I voted in a presidential election. It was 1968 - a year of wild street demonstrations against the Vietnam War, a year of when Robert Kennedy was shot while campaigning, the year of brutal police violence during the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Hubert Humphrey, the vice president under Lyndon Johnson, won the nomination at the bitterly divided convention. Richard Nixon was the Republican nominee.
Up until election day I intended to vote for a minority party (CaliforniaŐs Peace and Freedom). I was angry at the way the opposition to the war had been squashed by the Democrats. I would rather have six root canals than vote for Richard Nixon. I was frustrated by my choices. In the last week of the election the polls tightened. I was living in California. California, with its huge pile of electoral votes, looked like a tossup. I walked into the polling booth, the thought that my vote really mattered weighing heavily on my soul. I stood there, looking at the ballot. I hesitated. Finally, the thought of my protest vote helping to elect Nixon was too much to bear. I voted for Humphrey and felt sick about it, sick about the bind I was in. To make it worse, it didnŐt matter after all. Nixon won. I lost.
It was a rotten feeling. It is still a rotten feeling. I often donŐt like my choices at election time. To make matters worse, the candidates I enthusiastically support loose more often than they win. Crazy ballot measures pass. School finding measures get trounced.
As I walk into the polling booth the day after tomorrow, will it make any difference that I am a Unitarian Universalist? Most of us in this room are critical of the way the religious right has injected religion into politics. I believe that the religious right does us all a great disservice when it advocates teaching creationism as science, when it wants the Ten Commandments and ŇIn God We TrustÓ posted in our schools. I am offended when people quote scripture in order to deny rights to gays and lesbians. I donŐt like it when they inject flundamentalist religion into politics. Should I, then, leave my religious values at home and at church when I vote and when I step into the public arena? Should you?
This afternoon I want to explore the difficult question of the relationship between religion and politics. What should be the relationship between our deepest religious values and politics. What link should there be, if any, between our spiritual lives and our lives as citizens? I want to reflect on the meaning of losing in electoral politics. How are we to cope with and interpret defeat? And I want to go beyond our personal political involvement as citizens. What should be the role of this congregation, of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lake County, in the larger life of the community? What, if anything, are we together called to do in the public sphere?
The Christian scriptures record that Jesus said to render unto Caesar the things that are CaesarŐs and to God the things that are GodŐs. But what is CaesarŐs? Where is the line between our religious faith and our public action?
There are many who believe that the religious life is essentially an inward life, a deeply personal and private spiritual journey. Religion, for them, involves a turning away from the mundane, the worldly, the public. The spiritual life for them is about meditation, reflection, contemplation and ritual that invite the presence of the holy.
I believe that such people are profoundly mistaken. I believe that they have made the error of confusing the part for the whole. Of course we need to delve deeply into ourselves, to take time for introspection and contemplation, to reconnect with our sense of who we truly are. And there are times in our lives when we need to withdraw from distractions and conflicts of our lives, to engage in a reflective spiritual practice.
But there is a real danger here, too. It is a danger especially acute in our time - a time that has made an idolatry of self worship. The danger here is of a spiritual implosion, a fixation on the self that results in a spiritual black hole of self absorption. Narcissism is not spirituality. Self absorption is not a religious journey.
There is an opposite danger as well. We can become so absorbed in our causes that we lose all perspective. We can let our passion for justice turn into anger and cynicism. We can let our public life destroy the relationships around us. We can forget to take time for calm solitude.
The religious life must be a balanced life. It must balance the inner journey with the public one.
I read somewhere (and for the life of me I cannot find the passage) a religious writer who said that true religion begins as mysticism - and ends as politics. Religion begins as mysticism and ends as politics. I believe there is much truth in that. If we truly experience a deep spiritual awareness, a profound sense of who we are and where we fit into the cosmos Ń such an experience cannot help but transform the way we move in the world. We need both mysticism and politics. We need to reflect and ground ourselves before we act. We must act. We must then reflect upon and take instruction from our engagement with the world. It is an endless dance.
Our Unitarian Universalists principles attempt to capture this movement, this balance.
Think about our first principle as Unitarian Universalists: we affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Sit with that for a moment. The implications of really believing in the inherent worth and dignity of every person are overwhelming. It affects every intimate personal relationship we have and how we act in the public arena. Surely, if we believe that every person is precious we cannot be indifferent to oppression. We cannot turn our backs on injustice. We cannot make peace with racism. We cannot be reconciled to the violence all around us.
Similarly, we cannot say we respect the interdependent web of which we are a part and then proceed to trash the planet. If we really mean it, we care about poisoning the air and water. We care about mowing down forests. If we really mean what we say, we cannot sit by while species are made extinct. Respecting the interdependent web means being good stewards of creation. And being good stewards of the interdependent web leads to politics like a clear mountain stream leads to the sea.
We cannot affirm peace and democracy and not be concerned about war and the conditions that lead to war. We cannot be untroubled by the trade in small arms that makes combatants of children We cannot be untroubled by the arming of small impoverished nations. We cannot be indifferent to the slaughter of Indians in Chiapas or Hutus and Tutsis in Africa.
As I look at our seven principles, 1 see that five of them deal with the way we engage with the world:
1. the inherent worth and dignity of every person
2. justice, equity and compassion in human relations
3. the right of conscience and the use of democratic process within our congregations and in society at large
4. goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all
5. respect for the interdependent web.
Ours is a deeply engaged tradition. We have always seen our faith as having profound implications for how we live, including how we live out our values as citizens.
As we move into the future, we should always be guided by our fundamental principles. That is where we agree and the ground from which we move forward. But we need to remember that honest people of goodwill will disagree about specific candidates and specific issues. We need to be careful to live out our commitment to open and democratic debate. We must not impose an unspoken political orthodoxy. Part of this involves living the religious value of humility. The truth is we do not know and cannot predict with precision the outcome of many political changes. The truth is that our society is complicated and dynamic. People will differ on how best to live our principles. In our passion to be advocates for one point of view we should remember that people who disagree with us are not evil; they are not the enemy.
And we must remember that there is legitimate diversity of public engagement just as there are different theological opinions among us. Some will feel called to particate in electoral politics; some will work quietly behind the scenes to protect the environment; some will volunteer at social service agencies. There is more than one way to build the future.
We need to remind ourselves, especially as we ponder the recent election, that we are called to live out our values over the long haul. We stand in a long tradition that has advocated freedom and justice; that tradition will live for a long time. We cannot create the promised land of peace, compassion and justice in one election or even in one lifetime.
Because of this, we should never be discouraged because we lose. Those who see the big picture, those who look at the long span of history, those who are willing to be witnesses for a better world are destined to lose in the short term. We are, as a people, on the cutting edge of issues like the environment, civil rights for all, peacefhl resolution of disputes. Of course we are going to lose lots of races this Tuesday. ThatŐs our job! Really. Losing elections is our religious calling.
Think of Susan B. Anthony, the Unitarian woman who spent her entire adult life working tirelessly for the right of women to vote. She worked in that struggle for 50 years. Fifty years. And she never won. Susan B. Anthony died without ever voting for president. Yet she and her colleagues changed history. Tuesday more women than men will vote. But Susan Anthony never lived to see it. Think of the long struggle against slavery, the long march for civil rights. Many of those who worked for justice on these issues never saw victory; many saw real change only decades alter they began their labors.
We are in a special position. We are a highly educated group of people in here today. We have been fortunate enough to have been liberated from the bondage of ignorance, dogma, superstition, fear and crushing poverty. We have a keen sense of what is possible. We know that racial, cultural and sexual diversity do not threaten us, they enrich us. We know knowledge opens new vistas; we are not afraid of science and learning.
It is our calling, it is our destiny, to be witnesses for human possibility. We need to be out in the vanguard of those advocating for those without a voice. We need to expose racism for the evil it is. We must be advocates for tolerance and cooperation.
And when we do that, we are going to lose elections. We should expect that and be proud of it. That is our role in history Ń to be out front in the struggle to build a world that is just and compassionate. Indeed, I have come to believe that if most of the causes and candidates I support win, I need to take a long hard look at what I am doing and who I am backing. Even though the recent elections have brought disappointment to many of us, we need to remind ourselves that no significant struggle for justice has been won quickly. We cannot measure our effectiveness by one election, by one vote in the legislature.
The world needs us. Certainly Lake County needs us. The world needs the Susan B. Anthonys, the Martin Luther Kings, the Gandhis Ń people who are not deterred by setbacks on the journey. It needs people of faith that will be strong and consistent witnesses for civility in politics Ń people who reject using religion to attack people, who reject the politics of character asassination. The world needs us. It needs people who are willing to lose today because we see today in historical context. Our eyes have to be on the prize. When our eyes are on the prize we cannot lose hope, we will not be discouraged, and we will prevail.
So today I pray that we remain a consistent and effective voice for human dignity, for justice, for freedom, for compassion, for stewardship of the earth. In the most basic sense, politics is not primarily about winning and losing elections. Politics is the creation of a polity, the creation of our common future.
And in that deep sense of politics, 1 believe our political lives are a natural and inevitable flowering of our spirituality, of our deepest sense of what is worth living for, our fundamental sense of what is sacred.
May we keep our eyes on the prize. May we see that we are a part of a long religious and political tradition that has the courage to advocate freedom and to push the agenda of justice one step forward. May we continue proudly to lose the small battles, confident that we are slowly taking steps on the long road to a world of freedom, a world of compassion, a world of justice, a world of peace, a world that cares for our beautiful blue planet.
May our politics flow from our hearts. Together we are a strong voice. Together we will make a blessed difference. So be it. Amen.
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