Taller Than Corn: Religion in the Public Square
Unitarian Universalist Church of Muncie
August 27, 2006
©2006 Rev. Thomas M. Perchlik
I was riding my bike down a country road the other day between two fields of corn. In late August to be on a narrow road between seven foot tall walls of cornstalks is a striking experience. One feels hemmed in, all vision of the larger landscape is cut off, as if in a room thick with humidity and the scent of green life. Walking out into the corn rows is like walking through a deep maze where one can not see beyond the nearest stalks. In corn-mazes it is rare to see a landmark; perhaps something looms in the distance a grain elevator, or the distant trees. The corn is vital, but the trees have deeper roots, have endured longer, and above them hovers the timeless sky.
When people are focused on their own religion, or on the differences between what they believe and practice and what others believe and practice, it is like walking through a corn field or a corn maze. The desire we all have is to rise above the corn, or above the limited aspects of religion so as to "see" or know the larger truth, that is "taller than the corn." The phrase 'taller than corn' here means 'more true than any particular religion.'
We Hunger for moral clarity and certainty. We want a secure identity within community that is grounded in a timeless truth, a truth which transcends all our frustrating human limitations: our selfish lack of goodness, our limited compassion, the boundaries of our knowledge and power. Clarity and security is like the corn, sustaining food for the soul. This is especially important in a world where people are moving around and everything seems to be changing at a dizzying pace. Thus UU Minister Brent Smith (in the August 26th issue of Dr. Martin Marty’s Sightings) quotes theologian Langdon Gilkey,
The reality of our world is of community-less individuals, where the hope for community, family, and church is felt very deeply by the otherwise empty individual... Fundamentalism grows in America because the natural and social communities of life have been threatened by economic, political, and social developments... [Fundamentalist communities] have a saving character to them [creating] real community."
Gilkey does not dispute the ambivalent nature of American Fundamentalism, nor shy away from critiquing its excesses," notes Rev. Smith, "But he also doesn't deny its balm for human yearnings to be connected, to overcome the anxiety resulting from [an essential] condition of human existence: separateness." Despite the deep value we give to individual freedom we know also that our well-being is bound up with community.
There is incredible, almost mind numbing, diversity in the world. Though many in this church are naturally inclined to appreciate religious and cultural diversity, or have learned to do so, for many people religious differences are merely confusing. Some people simply want to know what their religious duty is, what the holidays of their culture are and what rituals ground their people. This is a basic human problem. Even within UU congregations differences in points of view can cause conflict.
For example three UUs regularly play golf together, a Minister, a Doctor and an Engineer. One fine Saturday morning they find themselves behind a very slow group of players. These other golfers are shuffling around the course, taking big divots, and all the while guided around by a group of caddies. After a while they call the course manager over and ask what is going on with these guys who are getting in the way of their golf.
"Oh, those are the blind firefighters. They saved our clubhouse from destruction a while ago but there was an explosion and they lost their eyesight. So we let them play whenever they like for free and we provide them with special caddies to help. I hope you don’t mind if they play." "Wow" says the minister. "Of course they can play. What a brave group, seeking happiness in the face of such hardship. I want to tell their story of bravery in the face of difficulty, perhaps in my next sermon." "Yes," says the Doctor, "It is great that they get a chance to play, outdoor activity is quite healthy. But I want to help improve their situation. You know, I have a good friend who is an ophthalmologist. I will ask if he can help them somehow." The Engineer looks at them for a moment and then says, "Of course they should play… but why don’t they just play at night?"
We each see the world from a different point of view and our sense of duty and purpose varies. Thus we come together to find larger goals and purposes and to appreciate the value of individual difference. Of course the deeper problem is that on matters of subjective and individual interpretations of reality we can differ, but we hunger for some clear agreement on what constitutes objective and absolute reality. In China I am told, now that the Government has stopped proclaiming itself as the fount of absolute and final truth, every form of religion, from ancient superstitions to every modern religion has burst into the Chinese culture.
And so it seems throughout the world. Out of one truth there have come many. We sink into a confusing morass of ideas if we can not affirm that Reality exists or if we assert that everyone is welcome to his or her own view of what is true and what is right or wrong. Religious conservatives often interpret religious tolerance as a denial of objective reality. If all religions are equally true, then none are, for certainly all religions do not teach exactly the same thing. What is truth if we can not know it? The religious liberal response is that the problem is not with truth but with the assumption that any one or anyone group can know it all, perfectly, or that our understanding never changes.
Recently someone in this congregation reported a conversation to me. The UU was speaking with a woman he had just met and the subject of war came up. The new woman said that the problem was "all these different religions." The UU having been something of a skeptic all his life mumbled some assent, thinking that the woman meant that religions were the problem, and that human unity was to found outside of religion. But then she said, "If only we all had the same religion then we would have peace." For her the problem was not religion, but in different religions, in ‘diversity.’ Throughout history many have taken the same approach. Ancient Roman leaders thought, "If only those Christians would accept the unifying truth of our state religion, they could keep their own god. Sadly the absolute claims of Christianity nullified the Roman claims of the Emperor’s divinity. Christians also thought that peace would come if everyone took up the cross, as Muslims have hoped for universal submission. But we know that this is no solution. Not only is it impossible to prove the superiority of one religion others, but even if we could, which version of that religion would we settle on?
This congregation is part of a tradition of thought asserting that no one can have absolute and final truth on all things. Aspects of religions can be valid, even for centuries, but we also know that every religion is, to some extent, the product of human beings. The limits of our language, the influence of history and culture and the needs of particular time have had an influence on every religion of the world and each is lived out by fallible and often flawed human individuals and groups. Our movement arose from people who took Christian scripture so seriously that they realized it was idolatry to assume that anyone could read it and know God’s mind completely or without error.
Yet intolerance thrives. Recently Mel Gibson was quoted for divisive things he said while drunk, but when he was sober he asserted, "Extra ecclesiam nulla salus" or, ‘outside those who hold his view of Christianity there is no salvation, only hellfire and eternal damnation.’ Many of us have family members who cannot accept our religious integrity and faithfulness and who will pressure us to accept their world-view. Even the diversity of the Space Shuttle Columbia was met with arrogant negativity. Some said that only their kind of Christian on board went to heaven and, despite the many Muslims who affirmed the humanity and nobility of the crew, the fundamentalist leader Abu Hamza Al-Masri said,
It is a punishment from Allah - this is how Muslims see the incident. The target of this event was the trinity of evil, as the shuttle carried Americans, an Israeli, and a Hindu, the trinity of evil against Islam. This is a message to the American people that Bush's term is nothing but a string of curses cast upon them, and that it will lead to the exhaustion of their resources and the elimination of the false American dream....This is a divine message… saying that they are not welcome in space.
If we cannot all have the same religion certainly no political state should seek to enforce religious conformity. Still there are those who assert that such is exactly what is needed. Throughout human history, religion has often intensified a fear of the other. It has sanctified persecution of religious minorities and added fuel to political and ethnic conflicts. Troubled by the immensely destructive power of such sectarian and divisive religious attitudes there arose in the world the idea of a secular state. In such a political organization the government is completely neutral on matters of religion.
France is one nation in which the idea of laïcité or secularism is stated in its constitution and thus all references to religion and religious differences are purged from the public square. Recently wearing the hajib (or Muslim head-scarf) has been banned in public schools or for anyone holding public office. Yet, in French culture, religious difference has fueled deep ethnic and socio-economic divisions in recent decades.
In America our constitution states that congress shall not establish religion, nor shall it restrict the free practice of any religion. This makes the establishment of secularism a little more complicated. Take for example the conflict around a public school student, Brittany McComb. This is one of those little events that happened in one isolated school in Nevada but got picked up as an emblem of larger fears and agendas. Ms. McComb had achieved Valedictorian status in her school and was to give a commencement address. But the school had a policy that officials must approve the text of such speeches. This is also one of those situations that prove that students have no civil rights, at least not in school. The courts have affirmed this fact over and over. As a devout Christian she wanted to tell everyone what she saw as a simple fact that all her success was due to Jesus. However the school saw this as using a public sponsored event to proselytize and demanded she cut God from her speech. She decided to protest by giving the speech as written. The school officials thus let her speak but cut her microphone just before she named Jesus as her lord and savior.
This is not the best way to balance diversity and freedom of speech. Conservative Christians who are fearful of oppression can now point to this event as an example of persecution and intensifies their drive to force Christianity on others. Furthermore, if you take your religion seriously, secularism seems to trivialize your faith. In the secular state putting on a prayer shawl and worshipping what is absolutely true, the ultimate source of hope and peace, is no more or less important than putting on Spock ears and attending a Star Trek convention. Both are treated as merely individual matters of interest, personal hobbies that should not get in the way of public life. In addition, secularism implies a larger set of values that act in civic culture as like a religion primary to any other religious world view. Dr. Martin Marty of the Chicago School of Religion writes,
Some religionists bemoan that the world… is anti-religious and militantly secular, as some of it has been throughout modern times. Some secularists regularly publish anxiety-driven articles, asking, "Can secularity and secularism survive in the face of the waves of religiosity and spirituality?"
This second view is enunciated in Sam Harris' recent book The End of Faith. Though he says nothing of religious liberalism, he argues strongly that words like Allah and God must go the way of Baal and Zeus if the world is to survive and he insists that religious moderates are merely pandering to religious extremists. I say that secularism must continue, but must be a partner with, not alternative to, religion. Dr. Martin Marty has coined the word ‘religiosecular’ to describe what he sees as the twin tendencies in the world toward increasing secularity and increasing religiosity at the same time. His insight is that the two create and define each other. For example, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is both one of secular politics and religious divisions over visions of "God’s plan for his people" Jewish, Muslim and Christian. Religion must be taken seriously in global culture and affirmation of religious difference is essential.
Who better to show the way than Unitarian Universalists. As one of our advertising slogans puts it, "Many Beliefs: One faith." Our faith is in respectful, just and democratic society. Our faith is in one another when our differences are affirmed in community. If only the world could act likewise. The Hindu, Ramakrishna affirmed that Light is one but the Lamps are many. This is not to imply that all lamps are the same. Some gutter and sputter in the wind, while others may burn with solar radiance, but each has some light. Another image, I don’t remember from whom it came, is that each religion is like a digit on the hand of truth. Each has value but all must work with the others for the hand to express its full power. The thumb is unique from fingers, but it needs the fingers to make a fist or grasp a tool.
There are many species of corn, and diversity makes them all stronger. And so it was with the Spaceship Columbia. It embodied unity of purpose and mutual respect, and at the same time radical religious diversity. When that shuttle lifted from the launch pad its smoke trail rose far taller than the corn. The crew rose to look back and serve a planet where religious or political boundaries, as important as those things are, were invisible in the vastness of space. Each of us may have a different name for such larger truth. Perhaps the secular Humanists are right or maybe outer space is the face of Sri Rama, or a reminder of Allah, or a creation of Christ Jesus.
Meanwhile, the corn grows from season to season. The trees are taller and endure longer, and beyond them burn the numberless stars. In religion we must be tolerant of diversity, and also show how the object of our many beliefs and practices overarches all.
