The Full and Undivided Conflict of Opinion –or– Why UUs Should Be Republican
Unitarian Universalist Church of Muncie
April 30, 2006
©2006 Rev. Thomas Perchlik
READING
"Onward Christian Soldiers? Religion and the Bush Doctrine." July 1, 2005. James L. Guth, Lyman A. Kellstedt, John C. Green, and Corwin E. Smidt
During the past four years a growing number of political analysts have connected the emerging "Bush Doctrine" in foreign policy to the influence of evangelical Protestants. For example, one recent review (Brian Urquart of the New York Review) claimed,
The influence of Christian evangelicals now extends to many essential matters of foreign policy, quite apart from the Middle East. Dogmatic, unilateralist, and radically nationalistic, this influence ignores international law and is particularly hostile to international organizations.
Such assertions arise in part because of perceptions that conservative evangelicals are involved in virtually every aspect of American politics, from campaigning for George W. Bush in the 2004 election to mounting the recent "Justice Sunday" rally backing the president's judicial nominees. What is missing, however, is any systematic evidence that evangelicals — or other religious communities for that matter actually support or oppose the Bush Doctrine.
In fact, such assertions fly in the face of much of the existing research. Scholars have found little evidence that religion is a major factor shaping public attitudes toward foreign policy. True, a few researchers (including the authors) have shown that religion is a powerful predictor of attitudes toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and once contributed to anti-communist sentiment, probably stiffening America's posture toward the former USSR. But that was about it. Has the situation really changed? Is religion now influencing the public's understanding of the United States' role in the world?
SERMON
The theologian, Reinhold Niehbuhr, said, "The real dividing line in ethics isn't, finally, between good and evil, it's between those who want to be pure and those who want to be responsible." To be responsible requires that one engage, "both in times of security and danger, the full and undivided conflict of opinion." Only through undivided conflict can we reach the larger Truth that surrounds us all and that we each see only partially. I love that phrase, "the full and undivided conflict of opinion." One might wonder, 'how can conflict be "undivided"?' Isn't the very nature of conflict division? In fact our religious community upholds the larger truth that contains divisions and reconciles them. It is our purpose, to use Rev. Bill Schultz' phrases, "to teach the fragile art of hospitality, to prove that diversity need not mean divisiveness, to revere both the critical mind and the generous heart," and to show that we, human beings, hold the whole world in our hands. I often share stories from our UU history as examples of this very spirit, but we are just as capable of censorship, subterfuge and stupidity as anyone else. And we too can fall into divisiveness. So it was with the Unitarian, John Haynes Holmes.
Holmes is remembered for his pacifism, for his part in founding civic organizations still important today (especially the NAACP, the ACLU, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation), for exposing Unitarians to voices from other religions, for advocating the work of Mahatma Gandhi in America, and for his role in the Community Church movement. Though highly respected, he was a controversial figure, in part because of the absolutist character of his preaching and writing. An admirer noted that he was "accused of many things during his life, but never of being moderate." He understood conflict of opinion.
When he was called as minister of the Church of the Messiah in New York he required that it be remade, into the Community Church of New York. Over time it was transformed into a diverse, multicultural congregation. By 1930 (long before the term mega-church had been invented) it had more than 1800 members of 34 nationalities from six continents. Holmes wrote,
"We have rich and poor, high and low, black and white, ignorant and educated, Jew and Gentile, orthodox and agnostic, theist, atheist and humanist, Republican, Democrat, Socialist and Communist. All of which means that we are representative of New York City! . . . It is in this sense that we are a public and not a private institution—a community church, in the true meaning of the phrase."
Before this success Holmes faced great difficulty because of the force of his opinions and his lack of moderation. Indeed, Rev. Holmes preached a sermon in 1912 in which he voiced support for the candidacy of Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt was seeking to regain the office of President as candidate on the Bull Moose ticket. Holmes spoke his choice while a fellow Unitarian William Howard Taft, who was then the President of the United States and who was running for re-election as a Republican, was sitting right there in his congregation. The word of truth can be disturbing.
Taft did not agree with Holmes and at the national Assembly of the American Unitarian Association in 1917 he got to oppose him. During this meeting, at the start of WWI, John Haynes Holmes presented the report of a committee established to present the theological position of Unitarian churches at that time. In the report Holmes spoke on the issue of freedom of conscience, he included words about pacifism and proposed a resolution in favor of "the ministry of reconciliation, the preparation of peace, the establishment of social justice, the proclamation of God's law."
When Holmes ended, William Howard Taft, President of the Conference (and then former President of the United States,) denounced Holmes's report as an "insidious document" and moved a resolution attesting to the sense of the Conference, that the "war must be carried to a successful issue to stamp out militarism in the world." Of course we know now how ineffective this war was at stamping out militarism in the world. The idea of a war to end war seems crazy to most of us today, but not back then. Taft's resolution carried, 236 to 9.
Not long after, the editor of the Unitarian magazine the Christian Register, characterized opposition to the war effort as treason, and he expected disloyal ministers to be dismissed. Ministers "addicted to pacifist principles," he wrote, "cannot be permitted to plead a noble tradition of freedom of speech to justify or to mask sedition." The unintended irony of this statement should be obvious to you today. But, back then our commitment to freedom wavered. In 1918, the AUA Board moved to deny financial aid to any church whose minister "is not a willing, earnest, and outspoken supporter of the United States in a vigorous and resolute prosecution of the war." Later that year Holmes resigned his ministerial fellowship with the Association. He went on to do great things by speaking his mind and establishing a church where all were free to do the same. His eventual reconciliation with the Unitarian Universalist Church is a story for another time. The point here is that unanimity of opinion does not bring true peace or unity.
Certainly there is something wonderful in homogeneity. Human beings want everyone in their tribe to be the same. But reality is always larger and too much energy must be expended trying to quash contrasting views, while the power to draw people to beauty and goodness can fails to be fully captured by any one language or set of images. A central insight about truth is that it is interdependent and intertwined, but a secondary insight is that no one can own or perfectly understand all that is Truth. Thus we must engage in debate, contrast, struggle, in the full and open exchange of opinion.
In politics everyone should share a desire to eliminate poverty. The question as to exactly how to do that varies from one political party or another. Libertarians have more faith in private freedom from legislation while progressive Democrats place greater faith in expressing collective will through legislation. If a religious community contains a preponderance of one political party or another then either there is something seriously wrong with the political system, or with that congregation.
As Kenneth Patton put it, "This house [is] for declaring, both in times of security and danger, the full and undivided conflict of opinion." Otherwise those who fear to lose their exclusive hold on truth will win the day in the court of fear and trade freedom for unanimity. We must hold to principles, but temper them in their application. Judge Learned Hand once said, "I do know that a society, so riven that the spirit of moderation is gone, no court can save; that a society where that spirit flourishes, no court need save; that in a society which evades its responsibility by thrusting upon the courts the nurture of that sprit, that sprit in the end will perish." Principles are powerful because they can light your path, and dangerous because they can blind you to everything.
This sermon began when I was listening to a Republican commentator back in the 90s speak about how his party stood for freedom and personal responsibility. As he spoke it seemed that his vision of a world where people were free from coercion and were brave enough to accept the consequences of their choices was exactly like what I had preached many Sundays. I wondered, "If what he says is true, why are not most UUs Republican?" Of course, as he began to apply these principles to smoking restrictions and motorcycle helmet laws I realized that the principle of freedom alone was not enough. It had to be balanced by compassion, a duty to help others, to protect the innocent, and to lessen suffering. Freedom and the rights of conscience must be tempered by our commitment to affirming inherent worth, as well as promoting justice, and equity in human relations. It may have been Benjamin Franklin who said, "I don't believe in principle, but I do believe in interest." In fact principles are what bind us together as a community. But religious principle always points us through our particular political goals and legislative agendas to a larger truth and wholeness. Alfred North Whitehead proclaimed the undivided conflict of the religious quest when he said,
"Religion is the vision of something which stands beyond, behind and within the passing flux of immediate things; something which is real, and yet waiting to be realized; something which is a remote possibility, and yet the greatest of present facts; something that gives meaning to all that passes, and yet eludes apprehension; something whose possession is the final good, and yet is beyond all reach; something which is the ultimate idea, and the hopeless quest."
UUism should be about upholding universal religion, not particular and partisan politics. My job in part is to speak the truth as I see it. As a result many of you know my political opinions, or some of them. However my role is also to listen. I hope that my speaking reflects the fact that I listen carefully. I hope I always include alternate points of view in my sermons, not as straw dogs but as valid and contrasting thoughts of members of this congregation. If I fail to do that, or to do that well, I hope you will let me know and improve my ministry of speaking and listening.
Of course the ministry, the work of this church, is shared by all. Thus you also have a duty to allow for the full and undivided conflict of opinion. This does not mean you should be tolerant of any fool notion that comes out of anyone's mouth, but that you should engage others in conversation, rather than antagonistic debate. It means that you encourage others to speak their opinions. I have been at parties in this church where someone, speaking to a group of others, simply assumed that everyone was of the same political party or political philosophy. Sometimes we subtly reinforce the impression that "republicans" or "libertarians" are odd or rare in the congregation. Especially in our polarized culture a tendency toward "group think" and a desire to seek out "like-minded folk" feels more secure and safer. But as I often point out, safety is not found in destroying your enemy, but in making friends across differences. The Rev. Tom Owen-Towle reported a few years back that, nation-wide, 42% of us registered Democratic and 38% Republican. His survey did not include independents, libertarians, socialists and others. Now, we take theological pluralism for granted in our ranks, but must not ignore the reality that we're politically diverse as well.
In the midst of diversity we still must take political positions. We must decide which party or laws will best affirm and promote our principles. We must stand on one side, but not demonize the other. We must not assume that our opinions and decisions are those of God, nor those of pure reason and objective truth. For example, I came across an essay by Ms. Megan Stewart, a freelance writer and graduate at Colorado State University. She recounted when,
A few years ago in the conservative evangelical church I then attended I heard an impassioned sermon on the first chapter of Romans, the Apostle Paul's discourse on the sexual immorality of the Roman Empire. This was during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. I sensed the minister was trying to tell me I'd sinned by voting for Bill Clinton. Annoyed, I read ahead to the next chapter, which began by saying that believers had no right to judge because they did the same things. I spent the rest of the sermon listening to see whether my minister had bothered to read past the part that supported his political views, concluding he had not.
Recent elections in Italy show that polarized cultures and narrow elections are not unique to America. But recently there has been increasing division and divisiveness in our country. I think that a certain gerrymandering of political precincts is partly to blame, as well as our culture wars. But, in their article "Onward Christian Soldiers? Religion and the Bush Doctrine," James L. Guth, Lyman A. Kellstedt, John C. Green, and Corwin E. Smidt (July 1, 2005) raised some questions which I read earlier in our service. To answer these questions, they used the fourth quadrennial National Survey of Religion and Politics, conducted at the University of Akron in the spring and fall of 2004 and sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. They defined the Bush Doctrine as an "emphasis on military strength, a preference for unilateral rather than multilateral action, a willingness to engage in pre-emptive war (as in Iraq), and a tilt toward Israel in the Middle East." They further "divided evangelicals, mainline Protestants, and white Catholics into traditionalists, centrists, and modernists based on stated adherence to classic Christian orthodoxy." Finally, for all the religious categories, they looked "at three distinct subgroups: citizens (all respondents), voters (those who voted for president in 2004), and activists (voters who also engaged in at least two other political activities) to consider the impact of greater political engagement on attitudes.
This is a very well done survey and I recommend it to you to pursue in detail, but in the end they say,
In sum, American religious groups — and not just evangelicals — do indeed hold distinctive views on the Bush Doctrine. Evangelicals and traditionalists of all sorts are the strongest adherents, while the non-religious, religious modernists, and minority faiths are the most negative... Indeed, support for the Bush Doctrine appears to be another part of the much-discussed "polarization" of American politics. Were these patterns to persist beyond the Bush administration, they would represent a significant change in American political alignments. Our findings raise even more provocative questions for [persons] seeking to live out their faith in the world. Does the Bush Doctrine reflect the goals of security, peace, and democracy, as the president insists, or does it embody unilateralism, aggression, and religious zealotry, as his critics claim? Can pre-emptive and anti-terrorist wars be consistent with the Christian concept of a just war, or are they destructive without the hope of redemption? Is the United States dedicated to spreading God's gift of freedom to all humankind, or has it wrongly identified its own selfish interest with Divine Purposes? Do traditional proponents of the Gospel now worship the nation state, or are the modern interpreters of faith incapacitated in the face of evil?
These are questions for all of us to ponder. Today we prepare for state primaries. We must be excited and vote. But do not, as Reinhold Niehbuhr cautioned, seek purity of opinion. For the well being of everyone we must seek always a larger good and deeper truth by engaging in the full and undivided conflict of opinion.
