Last week, advertisements began appearing at commuter train stations in the county where I live that, it would seem, blame all of Islam for the actions of violent extremists who are Muslim. Debate over the ads here in Westchester, including in the congregation I serve as minister, has centered on the question of “hate speech.” Similar debate is happening elsewhere around other current events as well, including senseless violence against our Sikh siblings, the denial of equal marriage rights to same-sex couples, and the persistence of misogyny in our political arena.

What, we’re asking ourselves, is “hate speech,” and what is the proper response of moral, loving, spiritual people to it?

I should be clear at the outset that I am not seeking a legal definition of hate or hate speech. Im not a lawyer or a judge. Rather, I am asking for a spiritual definition of it. Whether something is right or wrong has little do do with whether it is legal. (This is, interestingly, something on which the religious right and the religious left can agree–even if we differ on what is right and what is wrong.) What is acceptable in a compassionate society is a smaller set of things than what is not punishable by law.

To me, demonizing an entire group for the actions of a few is the epitome of hate speech. The impulse that leads some to vilify all of Islam because there are Muslim terrorists who justify their actions with a misunderstanding of their religion is the same impulse that makes communities protest the building of mosques and deny some among us their freedom of religion. The more we accept dehumanization, stereotypes and lies about groups of people, the more likely we are to accept violence against them–or people who look like the stereotypical images we have of them stored in our narrow minds.

Recent public debate about rape is another example of speech that, frankly, should be unacceptable to all people who seek to shape our society in an image of love and compassion. If we deem it acceptable for anyone to create a category of “legitimate rape,” we are implicitly condoning a culture in which survivors of sexual violence are stigmatized, doubted, and shamed. Women who live in fear of violence should not be verbally assaulted by those seeking to make political points with their “base.”

Finally, if we use our freedom of speech to block another from having the same rights we enjoy, have we not crossed a line that no religion should accept? I believe so. My impending marriage here in New York has no impact on your relationship or relationships with your past, current and future partners. Don’t blame me for the moral decay of our society–blame our increasing tolerance for hate. Take the twig out of your eye before you reach for the speck in mine.

Unitarian Universalist congregations covenant to affirm and promote, among other things, a “free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” in my faith, freedom comes with responsibility. It should be so in our society as well.

Just because certain speech is protected by the freedoms enshrined in our Constitution does not make all speech responsible speech.

If you’d like to engage in a meaningful dialogue about Jewish-Muslim relations with respect to Israel and Palestine, you’re not going to get there by calling everyone who disagrees with you a terrorist.

If you’re trying to instruct your followers on the specific ways taught by your faith to lead a moral life, you don’t need to violate my freedom of religion or make me a second-class citizen to do so.

If you’d like to open a dialogue on the sanctity of life, denigrating the lives of women isn’t an appropriate place to begin.

Those of us who believe in compassion, equality and love cannot remain silent in the face of such unacceptable hate. Our goal should not be to silence the haters, but rather to drown out their hate with our love. Where ten people show up to call a group of people nasty names, a hundred others should be present with a message of love and acceptance. Little by little, those who choose to hate will get the message.

Like many of you, I am already bemoaning the tone and tenor of the Presidential campaign.  I’m not surprised, mind you, nor are you, I’m sure.  While we might have hoped that the candidates and their surrogates would “take the high road” and focus on issues in substantive ways, this fall promises to be the meanest, nastiest, most vitriolic campaign in our nation’s history.  I am sick of it already, and it’s not even Labor Day, the traditional “kick-off” date for the campaigns.

To make matters worse, I find many of my friends, both real and “virtual,” pouring gasoline on the flames of division and divisiveness.  No sooner are words out of the mouths of the candidates (or some talking head supporting one or the other of them) and – BAM! – social media is riddled with outrage.  My friends (who tend to be left-leaning) are quick to both create and forward postings about the latest affront or indignity uttered by their conservative counterparts, often without taking the time to step away from the keyboard, much less to check the facts.

Why, I wonder, do people who ordinarily behave in compassionate ways, support and perpetuate the vitriol that we’re so quick to bemoan?  Is it just too easy to pass along a degrading comment about a political opponent with the push of a button?  Are we trying to come across as “hip” or clever to our friends, most of whom are already aligned with our position already?  We’re certainly not seeking to lift the political discourse out of the gutter that it’s in.  Many of us wouldn’t dream of uttering in public many of the accusations we hurl online, yet we hit the “like” or “share” button with reckless abandon.  And that makes us participants in, and part of, the problem

As people of faith (no matter what faith you subscribe to), we are called to seek out the best in ourselves and in others.  That doesn’t just apply to our flesh and blood selves, but to our online identities as well.  In our lives we stand in solidarity against schoolyard bullying.  We march for human rights and the doctrine of inclusion.  Some of us proclaim loudly and proudly that we “Stand on the Side of Love.”  Yet behind the protection of our keyboards and our computers we don’t think twice about “othering” and even demonizing those who don’t share our political viewpoint or who see the solutions to our problems differently than we do.

Don’t get me wrong:  I have nothing against moral outrage and indignation.  We need to voice, both loudly and clearly, our concerns and our solutions.  We should advocate for our positions and our candidates.  But when we mock, degrade and vilify those who think differently than we do, we debase not just them, but ourselves and the very democracy that we all so dearly treasure.

As we become inevitably immersed in this mean season, I invite you to join me in striving to live up to the principles of our faith, of your faith (whatever it is), no matter how hard that might be.  In the language of Unitarian Universalism, let’s ask ourselves how might we continue to “affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity” of our political opponents?  How might we remember to strengthen, rather than degrade, the strands of the interdependent web of which we’re all a part?  Let’s consider how we might, in the words of Jesus, love not just our friends, but our “enemies” as well?  Perhaps it begins by simply taking a breath before we hit “share” or “like” on our Facebook page.  May that be our spiritual practice in the weeks and months ahead.

This day, and every day, I wish you peace.

Peter

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.”

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.

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…