There’s been a lot of controversy lately about chicken sandwiches. Specifically the fact that the family that owns the fast-food chain Chick-fil-A has donated millions of dollars to groups opposing marriage equality for same-sex couples. Suddenly, supporters of marriage equality are calling for boycotts of the chain and opponents of it are feasting there to prove their conservative credentials.
Most perplexing of all to me are the people who insist that chicken sandwiches have nothing to do with marriage equality. Maybe its just the crowd of folks I’m friends with on Facebook, but I’ve seen a lot of people insisting that where the owner of Chick-fil-A spends his money is none of their concern—they just like their pickles and sweet tea. These folks are indignant that anyone would dare ask them to give up this pleasure by connecting it to things they claim to care about.
Unfortunately for these people, it is impossible to separate where we spend our money from what values we espouse. While we might claim to hold certain things dear, if we’re not supporting those things in the world through the way we use our resources (even the smallest amounts of those resources), our value claims are lies we tell to ourselves and others.
I learned a long time ago that each time I spend money, I make a choice. I can make that choice intentionally—to support the things I care about—or not. If my choices are made in ignorance, I might just wind up supporting things I oppose. When I take the time to examine my actions, I can decide which values are most important to me, and how I want to support those values in the world.
Having lived in North Carolina for fourteen years, I know Chick-fil-A and its owners’ politics well. Even when their sandwiches were otherwise-acceptable in my diet, I didn’t eat there because I knew what my money would be used to support. It is possible that you value time and cheap food more than equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. If so, please continue to buy your lunches from Chick-fil-A. I won’t be joining you there.
Lest I leave you with the impression that this is all about chicken, it is not. Every time we spend money—even a few dollars—we make a value statement.
When I travel from my home into New York City, I choose to spend the $20 it costs on a round-trip train ticket rather than on gas and parking for my car. In doing so, I am saying that I value mass transportation and environmental sustainability more than freedom and time.
When I buy coffee, I choose to spend my money on fairly traded beans even if it means going to a store I know sells them that’s a little out of my way. In doing so, I am saying that I value economic justice and accountability more than convenience.
And if I want a chicken sandwich, I’ll get it from a company that supports my right to marry. I don’t honestly know which company that is (can I order chicken sandwiches from Amazon?), but rest assured I’ll find out if I’m ever jonesing for some chicken. Maybe I can convince whatever company it is to throw a few pickle slices on the sandwich for good measure.
Yesterday was my birthday, so I thought I’d explain how I came about my name Matthew Tittle.
In the Christian Scriptures, in the King James Version of the Book of Matthew (5:17-18), during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is recorded as having said:
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
In English, jots and tittles are best described as the cross of a t and dot of an i, respectively. In the original written Greek of the Christian scriptures they were iota and keraia, the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet and a serif or accent mark. In the spoken Aramaic of Jesus’ time and place, they were probably the yodh (the smallest letter in the Aramaic alphabet) and small diacritical marks, hooks, and points that help to distinguish one letter from another. The point in all three cases is attention to the smallest detail. I could say that my study of linguistics and credentials as a language teacher, combined with my theological training are my credentials for explaining jots and tittles, but I would be misleading you….The real story is this…
My parents, Mr. and Mrs. Tittle, bestowed upon me the biblical name of Matthew. They were, at the time, churchgoing folks, Presbyterians, my mother with perfect attendance for many years. So, they certainly knew that the passage in the King James Bible that read, “one jot or one tittle,” came from the book of Matthew. Hence my name Matthew Tittle is inherently biblical. That is, as long as you’re reading the King James Version of the Bible. My parents would not have overlooked this detail, especially since I know my family was focused on the gospels. You see, my older brother was Mark. My older cousin was Jon. I came third as Matthew, but my mother’s youngest sister rebelled, when her son was born, she refused to name him Luke. So we had Matthew, Mark, Jeff, and Jon. If I had been a girl, I would have been Mary, I don’t know if the intent was mother or Magdalene. So, being especially qualified to do so by virtue of my name alone, I am writing on what it means to attend to every jot and tittle in our spiritual lives! (written tongue-in-cheek for those who might think I’m serious…)
Unitarian Universalist minister Edward Frost says, “liberal faith in the perfectibility of humankind is tested to the breaking point by the daily demonstrated truths that human beings are capable of just about anything.”
We need to think deeply and attend to every detail in our practice and understanding of religion. We all encounter much that requires us to understand every jot and tittle of our own religion and that of others.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
When Jesus explains that he hasn’t come to destroy the law and the prophets, he is referring specifically to Jewish law and the teaching of the many prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. Remember, Jesus was a Jew, and was preaching to those who knew the Jewish law and scriptures, both Jew and Gentile. He had to explain himself in this way because he had just seconds earlier done something incredibly risky by saying, in what we call the Beatitudes, that the poor, those in mourning, the meek, the hungry, the thirsty, the merciful, the pure of heart, the peacemakers, and the falsely persecuted are those who are blessed. He raised them up over the rich, those without feeling, the bullies, the well-fed, the merciless, the deceitful, the war makers, and the persecutors. He also told them, the poor, the meek, the peacemakers, and so on, that they were the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and that they needed to let their light shine. This was heretical, dangerous stuff. And so, he felt it was necessary to explain himself.
Jesus’ disciples asked him later why he hung out with such low lifes as tax collectors and sinners. He responded that those who are well don’t need a physician, but those who are suffering…
Again, he said he wasn’t trying to destroy the law. He even told the people to specifically obey and not break the Ten Commandments. But Jesus was very much an activist and even subversive. I think he was trying to change the law. He promoted nonviolence, but he also promoted active resistance. He told the people to turn the other cheek, effectively offering an oppressor the chance to take another shot, which may very well land them in trouble. He said go the second mile. Soldiers could enlist citizens to carry their gear a certain distance, but no further. Jesus suggested going the second mile, not to help them out, but to get them into trouble. He said give them not only your shirt but also your cloak. A debt collector had to leave something for people to be afforded basic comfort. The cloak was both a coat for warmth and a blanket for sleeping. It couldn’t be taken, but if you gave it to them, again those charged with protecting the law risked breaking it. And even if these measures are interpreted as gestures of good will to the authorities, the result is additional suffering on the part of the poor, the meek, the pure of heart, the peacemakers. The result either way is that the weak are really the strong. They are the blessed. To invoke a phrase from Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church across town, “the victims are the victors.” Or as he says to his congregation “Be a victor, not a victim.” A sound soundbyte.
I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
What was he fulfilling? I think this is the key to the whole passage. Traditional interpretations suggest that the meaning here is nothing short of eschatological– the end times, the fulfillment of the apocalypse, and final judgment. I think that modern Christianity would be a wholly different and even more appealing religion if the book of Revelation had been left out. Which it almost was. Some even tried to have it removed as recently as a few hundred years ago.
If we separate the wheat from the chaff (to invoke another biblical nugget), we find that the heart of Jesus’ teachings (the wheat in this case), was almost exclusively devoted to the theme of love and care for one another, neighbor, and enemy alike. It was for the creation of a beloved community. His message was one also of personal empowerment of those who were considered the least among us. He told them time and again that faith would heal them. Faith comes from within. Faith is the very hardest thing in the face of truth, which is why he spent so much time trying to empower them to overcome adversity through faith.
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
This first phrase, “For verily I say unto you” in the King’s English (I’m sorry I don’t have the Greek or Aramaic on the tip of my tongue) is universally interpreted by biblical scholars to be an attention getter. “Hey folks, listen up, you better believe me when I say…” My own paraphrase of the rest of the passage goes like this: “Hell will freeze over before even the smallest detail of the law changes, until all is fulfilled, until you do something about it. Don’t go breaking the law, but change it so that this beloved community can be formed.”
After going through a few examples, he told these underdogs that until their righteousness exceeded the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, until they became victors and not victims, that they would not enter the kingdom of heaven. The scribes and the Pharisees were the recorders, and the interpreters and the enforcers of the political, social, and religious law. Jesus was saying that those who suffer, those who care, those who are oppressed, those who look out for the world, are as well and even better equipped for the task of interpreting the rule of law, than are those charged with doing so.
The kingdom of heaven that he refers to isn’t in the hereafter as many would have us believe. It is here and now. We can create heaven or hell here on earth. Human beings are capable of almost anything. Nothing is going to change until we change it. We need to attend to the details of our spiritual lives. We need to challenge the status quo, as Jesus did, so that we can bring about heaven here on earth. We can sit back and watch and do nothing and feel sorry others, or feel sorry for ourselves. But this would be the worst sin of all.
Over the past few years in the United States many have been criticized and ostracized, and persecuted for doing just what Jesus did–for dissenting–for being critical of the status quo and of those in and with power. But this is our task. This means speaking out, and more importantly, acting out in the world. It means knowing who you are spiritually, and being as certain and secure in that faith as are the scribes and Pharisees of our times. If we shy away from this moral imperative, “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law.”
The place is still dust brown, probably even more so than when we got here. The harvest is over and most of the green that was here is gone until next year. Things are still dust brown, but I don’t really notice it anymore. I am dust brown. The mongoose was at the mail container yesterday… looking for care packages? He/she/it is interesting, but I’m no longer impressed. The excitement of riding in the back of armored trucks across a strange, new land has faded. I don’t bother to take many pictures from the back of the truck anymore. Mostly it’s hot, bumpy, and uncomfortable. Which all feels pretty normal. I don’t like the explosions, but anymore it seems like most of us just frown, rather than jump, when the earth shakes.
Last week was Fourth of July. The chow hall served steak, lobster, hamburgers, bratwurst, cold sodas. We even had condiments! The next day we had fireworks… real ones. The EOD guys (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) brought in several IEDs that were discovered before they blew anyone up. I didn’t have my radio turned on, so I didn’t hear the announcement for the detonation. My teeth shook. I don’t think I’ve ever been overly bothered by explosions. In spite of the fact that my physical response is mostly reduced to a frown, I wonder if a person can ever get totally used to them. If so, I know I’m not there yet – probably a good thing. Even if you know it’s coming, it is disconcerting to have the Earth shake under your feet. It makes me mad.
My friend David, also a minister, explains that when you experience an event of grief, every occasion of grief you have ever lived through is present in you again. I can testify. The other day the sadness of losing five Marines caught up with me. I didn’t bother holding back the tears. There have been times when I could name all the people that I have known who died – either in combat or training for combat. As the list grows, I can no longer keep track. In my mind there is a visual image of David’s explanation of grief. It is a cloud shifting from its boundless potential to hold and store to its kinetic state of drops catalyzing every nearby drop and pouring profusely. Then the cycle starts again, only now there is more raw material for the next experience. People in combat report that it is the same with moral dilemmas. The weight of every decision they’ve ever made is present in the decision they are making now. When someone looks calm and cool on the outside, it’s hard for others to notice the existential mule of past experience kicking around inside them.
War changes your heart. It’s not so much whether you choose left or right and things turn out right or wrong. Your heart changed before the decision was made. What changes your heart is that you were the one called to that decisive moment – you were the one that had to choose and act. Circumstance is unforgiving out here. It’s a place where people become overly familiar with being between a rock and hard place. We learn about the severity of consequence and adjust our lives around considerations that feel rather ultimate, but eventually it just seems normal. When we get home, the rules will be different. There will be a few weeks, if we’re lucky, during which we won’t know what to do with ourselves. And we won’t really be able to either tell anyone what we need or listen to what they think we need. So, we’ll just go about our business of scanning the yard for signs of IEDs before we walk out to the car. The vigilance switch will remain in the “on” position for a while.
The other day we heard some chatter on the radio about an engagement and people getting injured. We waited for patients. The Aid Station was prepped for mass casualty. I’ve never seen a gunshot wound or an amputation up close. It was exciting in the way that terribleness can be exciting. We hold a fine emotional balance as we try to both urge providence away from any more casualties and accept the reality that we can’t influence what’s already happened. Everyone was in their well-rehearsed places. The mass casualty turned out to be one Afghan National Army soldier. The GSW and AMP turned out to be a superficial wound to the side of the head. He was taken to the ANA medical facility. They didn’t ask for assistance.
We’ve been eating a lot of flapjacks. I help cook them, and even though cooking a thousand flapjacks tempers one’s appetite for them, I still eat them… in a deliberate sort of way. By now, RP and I, and the cooks that have helped us, have served over 2500. Several organizations and individuals have made very generous contributions. I had been thinking about and planning the first pancake breakfast for weeks. The date was set. Wednesday, 13 Jun. Two other chaplains and two RPs (religious program specialists) were visiting my base. Everyone wanted to chip in. We were going to eat like kings. We mixed the batter the night before. By 0430 in the morning, both burners in the galley were running. Flapjacks were getting poured, flipped, and flopped into insulated bins by the dozen. At 0440, the executive officer walked in to the galley. He isn’t usually in the galley at 0440 in the morning. He looked at me. “Chaps, come outside for a minute.” I stepped outside. “We had a KIA last night,” he said. He told me the name of the Marine and what company he was in. My heart sank.
For weeks I had been coming back to my mud hut after the evening meetings and I would just sit down and pray thanks. People had stepped on IEDs that only partially detonated. People had taken one step to the side and bullets crashed into the wall behind them. We found many IEDs before anyone was injured by them. And now the XO was telling me that one of our Marines was dead. Within two weeks, four more would die.
War puts mundane things and ultimate things on the same shelf. A day that began with a sense of celebration culminated ten minutes later in grief. In my mind pancakes were at fault. I wondered if I would ever eat flapjacks again. By the hard bend of its lens, war distorts our sense of being oriented. Things that were friendly are now the enemy of serenity. My experience put breakfast and mortality next to each other. Many of our Marines and Sailors will face similar spiritual juxtapositions. The particular ingredients will be different. Using your hands to hold someone else’s guts gently inside them is a kind of intimacy that will challenge the prospect of intimacy that people hope for from love relationships. Putting a sheaf of artillery rounds on a building full of bad guys will blend exhilaration and nausea together in a way that Hollywood can only hope for. I went back into the galley. The more experienced chaplains probably already knew. I asked the chaplains, RPs, and cooks if they would gather around me for a moment. I tried to explain that in ministry sometimes we need to be present for both joy and lament in the same moment. In war, it is the same. I let them know that one of our Marines had been killed in an IED blast. At 0630 we opened the plywood doors of the chow hall and began serving. The Marines loved it – all but one. No one else noticed; the connection between death and flapjacks would be my private affair.
The other day I sat down next to a few Marines for evening chow. They asked if I was enjoying my time in Afghanistan. I asked if it was a trick question. We all laughed politely. I knew it wasn’t a trick question. I responded that it was exciting, rewarding, adventuresome… but that the reality of losing Marines tempered enjoyment. If it wasn’t for the snipers and IEDs, this probably would be enjoyable in an odd sort of way. It’s a place to face a challenge and be of service. Even if there are ways in which the rite-of-passage, which challenge and service ought to be, feels hollow, there are also ways in which this aspect of war is still profoundly true and rather thick. We lived in a world that was once familiar and seemingly within our scope of control. Now the spiritual furniture has been rearranged and we are going to stumble around for a while. Grief and moral dilemma will be our teacher – whether we want them to or not. What is still ours to choose is what we decide to learn from those teachers. Will we gradually add light to see the new furniture, or will we use the toe-stub method.
Apparently, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Colorado has suffered yet another tragedy. Let’s help each other to all shine bright. Next week, there will be flapjacks.
Disclaimer: All entries to CLF/Quest Military Ministries page reflect the personal views of the contributor. The views expressed here are in no way to be construed as an individual or individuals speaking in their official capacities for the agencies, departments, or service branches they serve in. This is not an official publication of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, any government agency, or any other organization.
In matters of interpretation, it’s important for us to try to understand context. This is an essential assumption inherent in a liberal religious outlook. Religious liberalism tends to discourage an enthusiasm for absolutes and universals, embracing instead a sense that the milieu in which something comes into being is almost always relevant in some way. This is intrinsic to a liberal religious interpretation of scripture, for instance.
It should be admitted that we all take things out of context sometimes. We all “pick and choose” to some degree, whether we’re liberal, conservative, or whatever label (meaningful or not) we may assign to a particular person or school of thought. Nevertheless, it’s healthy to acknowledge, if we can, when and why this picking and choosing take place.
Evidence indicates that James E. Holmes, the young man accused in the horrible recent mass shooting in a Colorado cinema, purchased some 6,000 rounds of ammunition quite legally over the internet prior to the massacre, and there are so far no indications that the four firearms he is accused of using in the shooting were obtained unlawfully. This brings to light yet again the ongoing and complex issue in our society about the availability of firearms, and the government’s role in regulating their sale and purchase. The defense mounted by those who urge fewer restrictions on gun ownership is most often the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which is interpreted in those instances as protecting the right to bear arms. After all, it’s right there in the text. But what does the amendment actually say?
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
There is an aspect of this amendment which is wholly unique, both within the original Bill of Rights and the seventeen other amendments that have been added subsequently: the Second Amendment is the only one that says why the right in question is granted. The First Amendment does not state, “The separation of church and state being vital to the sustenance of a democratic state, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” the Thirteenth Amendment does not say, “Being injurious to and wholly at odds with the principles of liberty, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” Indeed, every other amendment simply states what the rights being granted or the restrictions on the government are, without stating a purpose for doing so. Only the Second Amendment gives a rationale, an explanation for why the right it grants shall not be infringed.
To what militia did James E. Holmes belong, and by whom was that militia well-regulated?
If a phrase from the Constitution, the Bible, or any text is going to be taken out of context, we ought to think seriously about why, and what the consequences might be.
Yesterday I was listening to a radio interview with the Catholic bishop who had been charged with responding to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Basically, his stance was that the group, which represents 80% of Catholic nuns, was just flat-out wrong when they suggested that the Catholic Church needs to re-examine its stance on birth control, homosexuality and ordaining women. He said that their vow of obedience was not to their conscience and what they felt to be the call of God, but to the hierarchy of the church. He said that he welcomed dialogue with the women religious, but that “dialogue” meant their coming to understand and accept that the traditional stand of the church and its hierarchy was correct. He pointed out that Catholicism is a revealed religion, and not subject to change based on a changing society.
And all I could think as I listened to him was: “Man, you are so screwed.” They have painted themselves in a corner. When you categorically refuse to adapt to the world you live in, you have doomed yourself to extinction. Maybe not soon, but eventually.
Now, there are plenty of people who would say that if we don’t hold to any absolute standards then we are simply awash in a shifting sea of cultural expectations. We have no compass, no guidance through the tempests and changing tides. This claim is not with out merit—after all, the fact that Kim Kardashian or Snookie thinks something is a good idea hardly means that we should all follow suit.
But here’s the thing. The Catholic Church has staked its life on holding fast to things that are failing to stand the test of time. The position of women in society has undergone a shift across the centuries from an assumption that women are property to an assumption (at least by many) that women are fully the equal of men, and deserve the same rights and responsibilities. The Church has created an absolute out of something that turns out to be quite relative. Even the notion of a strict hierarchy—Pope above bishops above priests above laity, men above women, angels above people above animals—all that Great Chain of Being vision of how the universe is arranged is severely retro. In the modern world it has largely been supplanted by an ecological model in which beings live in a complex net of interrelation, with each part inextricably bound to the whole.
I can’t fault the bishop for his statements. He is, after all, only doing the job he was assigned to do by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. And sadly, I suppose the job he was doing was a job that many of us assign to ourselves on a daily basis—holding fast to things that “have” to be true, regardless of the evidence, for fear that our worlds will fall apart if we open ourselves to the possibility that the world does not match our assumptions. It’s the commonest thing in the world. But as a foundation on which to build a church—or a life—well, it makes me sad.
Faith is not about belief. Faith in fact has very little to do with what beliefs you hold, other than that it allows you to hold them. Faith is a sacred, deep, emotionally involved kind of trust. Faith is the kind of trust that you enter into with your whole being. Faith is the kind of trust that, when it has been broken, it hurts deep inside… but faith is the kind of trust that finds a way to trust again despite the hurt.
We are all people of Faith. Faith is a basic aspect of human nature. We live in a universe that is so awe inspiring, so infinite, so grandly complicated that all of human knowledge amounts to only a tiny fraction of reality. Indeed, much of human perception about reality is pure construct… because the whole of infinity cannot be understood by finite human minds.
The realization of just how little about the universe we actually understand exists in all of humanity, both consciously and un-consciously. That realization is one understanding of why humans created religion (but not the only one).
Faith is what allows us to function despite knowing or sensing how little we actually know about all that surrounds us. This is where beliefs come into the definition of Faith. Faith does not equate to beliefs… but it is possible to hold faith in some of your beliefs.
We can have faith in (or sacred trust in) beliefs, in principles, in people, in religious traditions, in community, in systems and institutions, in ourselves, and in the universe as a whole. This last is sometimes referred to as “Faith in God”, “Faith in Dharma”, or “Faith in Creation”. As I have found faith in the universe as a whole, that it is not conspiring against me, not indifferent to me, but rather conspiring on my behalf and that I am a part of it… I have found something to have faith in… but that is not my faith.
My faith is the ability to trust something from the very core of my being. When we are bound together by trust that touches the deepest aspects of who we are… we are living in Faith Community.
A Crisis of Faith is not when a belief is questioned, but when we sense that a deep trust has been broken.
Someone has been Faithful, a Faithful spouse, a Faithful friend, a Faithful person, when they hold not only the sacred trust they place in others, but the sacred trust others place in them as one of the most important aspects of their human existence.
A Religious Faith is not a collection of people who share beliefs, but a community of people who have made the commitment to trust one another to care for each other’s spirits and souls, and who join together for a Faith filled purpose.
Blind Faith is a trust that is not examined, not understood, and of which requires only body and soul, neglecting the mind and the spirit.
Pure Faith is the kind of trust that you hold even when your rational mind says you should not. This is a two edged sword, because at times the ability to hold a pure Faith is a blessing, at other times it is simply Blind Faith in disguise.
Click here to read the rest of the Defining Religious Language essay series
Yours in Faith,
Rev. David
As a New Yorker, I should be accustomed to the fact that the annual Fourth of July hot-dog eating contest held in Brooklyn is local news. I should be, but I still cringe whenever I turn on my evening newscast only to see a line of people stuffing frankfurters and buns into their mouths at nauseating speed. Then I stop to think about why this is news (people actually enjoy watching it, it’s a “sport” we can all relate to, etc. etc.), and the minister in me reacts.
Of the many things I find objectionable about this yearly American ritual, the one that sticks with me the longest is how it celebrates quantity over quality. This is a disease that is rampant in the dominant cultures of our world. It is a disease that is poisoning our species, our relationships and our Earth.
“More, more, more,” we cry, never satisfied. Our national hunger for stuff–lots of stuff, any stuff, more stuff–is impossible to ignore. Like a person who needs only 2,000 calories a day consuming 19,000 calories of hot dogs in just a few minutes, we eagerly snap up the latest contraptions, gadgets and fashions with no concern about how our overconsumption affects others.
We decry the high cost of gasoline because we have built communities in which our individual vehicles are required to get us to our individual activities. We protest at the merest notion that our taxes should be used to support mass transportation, say, or renewable energy (much less fuel efficiency). Meanwhile, we’re spewing carbon into the atmosphere at an almost unfathomable rate. Our Secretary of State goes to China to talk about low-emission cookstoves in poor households while millions of Americans drive behemoth SUVs for neither sport nor utility.
We measure our economy by the number of new houses built, largely because building new houses means hiring tradespeople and buying appliances. Despite the fact that our national policies are designed to spur the construction of more and more houses, more and more people are, simultaneously, forced to live on the streets, in the woods and in their cars.
I’m part of the problem, too. I love my electronic toys (I’m typing this on my iPad), and yet I pay little attention to the pollution caused in China by the factories that make the screen I’m looking at, or the child labor in Africa used to mine the rare metals inside my phone.
And so I see myself in the face of the eating contest participant shoving processed meat and refined white bread into his mouth, trying to do nothing but eat more than the person standing next to him. I look into the mirror of truth, and see something I cannot live with. I need to go on a diet. A stuff diet. Maybe you’ll join me. We’ll be healthier together that way.
In yesterday’s New York Times, op-ed columnist, Ross Douthat, published “Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?” My first reaction upon reading the article was to launch a strident refutation. Other people of liberal faith already have. But as I thought more deeply about Mr. Douthat’s indictments, I found more truth and realized that my own reaction was just that–a reaction to some of the unfortunate realities that liberal religion has brought upon itself. I’m not in complete agreement with all of Douthat’s criticisms. His final premise that liberal churches, “often don’t seem to be offering anything you can’t already get from a purely secular liberalism,” is painfully accurate. However, I think Douthat misses the mark on why this is. There are, at least, other possibilities to consider. The foundation of Douthat’s concern seems to consist of liberal reforms, primarily in the Episcopal church (although he makes the connection to other liberal faith communities). I’m just not sure when reform became a bad thing. The slower moving Catholic Church certainly hasn’t been winning any awards for it’s resistance to and failure to adapt to the modern world. When I read Douthat’s words that the Episcopal Church:
is flexible to the point of indifference on dogma, friendly to sexual liberation in almost every form, willing to blend Christianity with other faiths…
I wanted to swell with pride. These are bad things? I think where Douthat misses the mark is somewhere in his concept of “traditional” religion, which he mentions at least twice. He seems to equate “traditional” with conservative and unchanging, but doesn’t ever define the word, except to invoke foundational practices mentioned by liberal theologian Gary Dorrien. As a person of liberal faith, I have come the understanding that “conservative religion” is an oxymoron. To be religious is to be generous, especially in the Christian context of Jesus’ teachings. There was nothing conservative, traditional, or status quo about what Jesus taught. Quite the contrary, he challenged the religious and political authorities and laws of the time repeatedly and stridently. Jesus taught generosity. Jesus challenged tradition.
So which “traditions” is Mr. Douthat holding up as more sound than the liberal reforms that have been the norm in societies and religions across the globe since human history has been recorded and preserved? I don’t think he meant the tradition that Jesus taught or that his immediate apostles followed, or their followers in the early centuries of Christianity, which was a time of oppression from without and debate from within. The earliest traditions of Christianity were to be counterculture. I imagine, from his own words, that Mr. Douthat means the traditions of the Catholic Church, which rejects the reformations that have been challenging the church for at least a millinium, which still dogmatically calls itself the one true Christian church. I wonder if he also means the fundamentalist interpretations of Jesus’ teachings that have infiltrated many corners of Christianity and subsequently dictate that there is only one path to the divine, through Jesus as lord and savior, all others being damned?
I find none of this “tradition” in Jesus’ teachings, in the early church, or in the liberal faith that I practice today.
Nonetheless, as Mr. Douthat accurately describes, liberal Christianity has moved uncomfortably close to a secular liberalism, and liberal faith communities are declining. But as any good social researcher knows, correlation does not equal causation. The claim in this article that the decline and imminent death of liberal Christianity is inherent in liberalism itself, is unfounded.
So what do liberal faith communities need to do to survive and thrive? I believe, like Mr. Douthat, that we need to offer religion again. Not conservative, traditional religion that is unchanging and uninviting, but the inclusive, radical religion that Jesus taught in his first sermon. A religion that binds together all people in a single garment of destiny. A religion that does not change the law, but fulfills it by holding it accountable, and by breaking the status quo. A religion that invites and creates social change, not because it is becoming more secular, but because change is human nature (thank God), and because social issues are moral issues first, not political.
We also need to reintroduce discipline into our faith practices. As liberal faith communities have progressed we have lost focus, not so much of our history and traditions, but of our discipline. Religion is ultimately grounded in practice. Practice requires discipline. Discipline creates disciples. Not blind followers, but informed, radically-prepared change agents.
This week, I promoted increased discipline in the faith lives of my Unitarian Universalist congregants using the example of the coming month of Ramadan and the five pillars of Islam. Even modern adherents of Islam practice the discipline required in the five pillars. I asked my congregation how they could introduce a regular, practiced, discipline of more reverence, more restraint, and more responsibility in their lives. None of this is counter to the ideas of religious liberalism. All of it will be necessary for us to get back on track with being successful reformers.
So, I absolutely agree with Ross Douthat when he says, “What should be wished for, instead, is that liberal Christianity recovers a religious reason for its own existence,” we just see different paths toward that goal. His are grounded in an undefined tradition and conservancy, mine are grounded in an unabashed liberal spirit and generosity within a healthy practice of religious discipline.
There are many paths…
Unitarian Universalists ought to be paying attention to what is happening in mainline Protestant denominations in the United States these days. This may seem counterintuitive to some; our religion has a Protestant heritage, of course, but the content and focus of much of Unitarian Universalist religious life ceased a long time ago to have Christianity at its center. We are a small religious minority in this country, not obviously part of any kind of “mainline.” Nevertheless, it’s worth recognizing that while we are theologically distinct from mainline Protestant denominations, there are a number of things we have in common socially and culturally: both Unitarian Universalists and mainline Protestants tend toward liberalism in theology, emphasizing a faithful life rather than any “one true way”; in both Unitarian Universalism and mainline Protestantism we see women in leadership roles, and we both tend toward progressive positions on social issues like civil rights and equality for women; Unitarian Universalism has the Welcoming Congregation program to affirm the rights and dignity of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons, and we find analogous stances in the Protestant mainline, such as the Open and Affirming congregations in the United Church of Christ, the Reconciling in Christ program of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and of course openly gay leaders like V. Gene Robinson have gained prominence in the Episcopal Church. Like Unitarian Universalists, mainline Protestants tend to worship in white-majority congregations; we both have historically been socially, economically, culturally and politically prominent in American society; our congregations tend to feature a prominent representation of educated, middle-class or affluent persons.
Another thing we have in common with the Protestant mainline in America is that we are declining in numbers. In terms of the sheer number of people belonging to congregations, Unitarian Universalists are not in the precipitous numerical free-fall of some mainline Protestant denominations, but neither Unitarian Universalists nor mainline Protestants are numerically growing. Given all these commonalities, religious liberals such as ourselves ought to be paying attention to the so-called “mainline,” whether or not we ourselves consider ourselves a part of it.
Finley Peter Dunn’s memorable aphorism about a newspaper’s role of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable has also been applied to other realms of human endeavor, including the religious enterprise. There are ways in which both Unitarian Universalists and mainline Protestants might fit someone’s definition of “comfortable.” The idea that every mainline Protestant and every Unitarian Universalist is well-educated and middle-class or affluent is patently false, and even if it were true, it is a monstrous absurdity to think that material wealth equals happiness — given that, say, cancer, domestic violence, alcoholism, or bipolar disorder are no respecters of socio-economic status. At the same time, it would be irresponsible not to at least ponder the possibility that it is not difficult to find persons in a Unitarian Universalist or mainline Protestant congregation who are individuals of means and influence, and/or people whose anxieties do not necessarily include wondering where their next meal is coming from.
I can’t speak for any other religious communities, but my experience of Unitarian Universalist congregations is that we are often motivated by a strong desire to be comfortable. There is some insight (and perhaps even a tiny bit of truth?) to the old joke: “Why are UU congregations sing hymns so badly? Because they’re all scanning ahead to make sure they agree with the words.” It is almost axiomatic in some of our congregations that some of our people are going to become discernibly upset if they hear something they don’t agree with. Our familiar tensions around, say, “the G-word” are emblematic of this. For me this raises a broader question: why are we attending a worship service in the hope of being comfortable? If we truly wish to plumb the depths of life’s meaning and death’s truth, won’t that necessarily involve some discomfort?
I am increasingly persuaded of the possibility that between the phenomenon of stagnant or declining numbers and the desire for comfort there exists a causative correlation. Everything in my experience persuades me that human beings yearn for environments of challenge in which we can grow. Such challenges can’t be demanding beyond our capability, or threatening beyond what we can endure, but they do need to extend beyond our comfort zones. We shouldn’t necessarily be surprised that our denomination is not growing numerically if we make comfort a primary goal. Whether or not we are indeed doing that remains an unanswered question, which is uncomfortable in and of itself.
Where we are most vital as a people of faith often seems to be in the places where we aren’t looking to be comfortable. The aforementioned Welcoming Congregation program, one of many things that makes me a proud adherent of this beautiful, flawed, human faith of ours, is a sterling example. It isn’t necessarily comfortable to confront the prejudices and injustices of our world and take a stand that some segments of our society condemn. Yet do we not feel called to this as our holy work?
Religious life should always be comforting: it should give us patience, strength and hope in our sorrow and pain. Being comforted and being comfortable are not the same thing.
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