Hating Hateful Haters
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.
Legitimacy
The furor over Rep. Todd Akin’s astonishingly irresponsible and oft-quoted remarks this week has once again thrown a complex moral, religious, legal and personal controversy in our country into stark relief, the question of abortion.
It seems to me that the burning question about abortion in the United States is not primarily about whether or not any given woman or teenage girl should or can have one, but about whether or not such actions should be lawful: the crux of the matter in this country is around the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe vs. Wade, which cleared the way for abortions to be performed legally in the United States. The language of “pro-life” and “pro-choice” is deliberately inflammatory. I’m not against language that inflames per se (perhaps this essay will demonstrate that), but I prefer to frame this not as an issue of life versus choice, but as an issue of legal access to abortion versus its legal abolition. It is an issue of maintaining the legal strictures in place as a result of Roe v. Wade (RvW), or intentionally altering the Constitution to remove those strictures. So may I suggest an experiment: instead of “pro-life,” I propose “anti-RvW,” and “pro-RvW” in place of “pro-choice.”
There are some positions that I disagree with and don’t understand. Same-sex marriage, for instance: intellectually, I suppose I can generally grasp the opposition to it, but deep in my heart, in the tenderest parts of my innards, I just don’t get it. Abortion is different. I disagree with the propositions and stances of the anti-RvW camp. But I get it. The intentional termination of a pregnancy through medical intervention is indeed a complex and difficult moral issue. Nevertheless, as a religious leader, a citizen-voter, and as a human being, I have to take a stand on what I think is right.
While I applaud the GOP for demanding that Rep. Akin drop his Senate bid, this occurred during the same week that Republicans approved party platform language that calls for a constitutional amendment banning abortion, even in cases of rape or incest. I strongly disagree with this move, but I will openly and freely admit it contains a stroke of internally consistent logic. If one truly believes abortion is murder, then what difference does it make how conception took place? I always felt there was an inherent hypocrisy or cowardice in the political posture of abolishing all abortions “except in cases of rape or incest.” It seems as if those who strike this pose are acknowledging that there are circumstances in which a woman should have a right to choose — just exceedingly narrow ones. “Abortion is murder,” this seems to declare, “but if, say, you’re a thirteen-year-old girl and your father raped you — well, okay then, you can go ahead and get an abortion.” In other words, for a woman or girl to have the right to choose, she can only earn it by unimaginable suffering and humiliation. Why do political conservatives grouse endlessly about reducing the role of government in our lives while endorsing positions that are so aggressively intrusive into the lives of women and girls? If we are going to promote that kind of government meddling in our personal lives, perhaps it would be fairer for both males and females to share the burden. Perhaps what’s needed is a move for a Constitutional amendment to prohibit males from having sexual intercourse with females, unless 1) procreative intent on the part of both parties has been firmly established (and of course the government would need us to fill out government-approved forms and such to declare such intent) , or 2) the male is required to wear a condom or provide legally verifiable proof of his being 100% infertile. If such a law could be passed and enforced, that would diminish the number of abortions spectacularly. If the passing and enforcement of such laws would seem preposterously invasive, why is the imposition of laws that restrict women’s sexual activity considered acceptable?
I do wonder why there doesn’t seem to be far more vigorous preaching and teaching from anti-RvW religious leaders urging men and teenage boys to refrain from having sex, or that we males should at least use birth control fastidiously. Never have I seen a pro-life bumper sticker or talked with an anti-RvW person who has mentioned, in my hearing, the role of males in the whole abortion question. Where is the anti-RvW religious voice calling men and teenage boys to sexual responsibility? Is pregnancy just regarded as a thing that just happens, like cancer or hurricanes, and what follows is all that’s important? What we seem to get from the religious right is the promotion of “education” which urges abstinence. I am not aware that any evidence has ever been offered by anyone to show that such programs achieve their aims.
The religious voices that are anti-RvW come from diverse traditions. What many of these traditions have in common, it seems to me, is an absence of female leadership. There are no female Roman Catholic priests, bishops, cardinals or popes. One person I know and love very much is a Pentecostal Christian and very much anti-RvW; there are no female pastors in this person’s church. I am not saying that religious institutions that bar women from professional leadership positions are not entitled to opinions on the issue of abortion, or any other issue, whether it pertains to women or not. I am saying that the absence of women in leadership roles in those religious communities is not irrelevant — especially if that absence is the result of a deliberate and tenaciously guarded policy.
The anti-RvW movement appears to be motivated by a dream of a world in which abortion disappears. But there is no reason to believe that abortion would disappear if the anti-RvW movement achieved its objectives. Women and girls had abortions before RvW; they just had to take far greater risks to their health and safety. I need not reprise the back-alley, coat-hanger refrains of the pro-RvW movement, but those assertions are correct. Some political and social conservatives claim that if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns; I wonder why more conservatives don’t also argue that if abortions are outlawed, only outlaws will perform them — outlaws regulated by no professional medical organization, licensed by no government, accountable to no one for their training, their competence, the fees they charge, the sanitary conditions (or lack thereof) they provide, or the survival rates of the women and teens upon whom they perform abortions. These are circumstances in which women and teenage girls are maimed and killed. We know this is true because this is what happened in the United States before 1973. It is not clear how a return to such conditions would promote the sanctity of human life.
I saw a bumper sticker recently that said something like:
Africans didn’t choose slavery
Jews didn’t choose the Holocaust
Babies don’t choose abortion
I couldn’t help but think: But that’s the whole point. Babies don’t choose abortion; they don’t choose anything at all. The pregnant woman or teenage girl is the one who has to make all the choices — not just about abortion, but about what to eat and whether or not to quit smoking or what kind of prenatal medical care she is going to receive. Many women and teenage girls have very limited choices around many of those things, but the point is, the above bumper sticker leaves pregnant women and teens entirely out of the equation. And any argument about abortion which leaves pregnant women and girls out of the equation is not only irrelevant and morally suspect, it’s dangerous.
In solidarity with our Sikh sisters and brothers
This past Sunday’s horrific shooting at the Oak Creek Sikh Temple just outside Milwaukee is more than just news headlines to Unitarian Universalists. It took place just a week after the four-year anniversary of an unnervingly similar crime, the killing of two and wounding of seven on July 27, 2008 at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church by a lone gunman whose perception of reality was warped by hate.
There is much we may never know about Wade Michael Page, the apparent gunman in the Oak Creek shootings, as he was among the dead in the violence he unleashed (apparently by his own hand after being wounded in a shootout with police). Why did he do what he did? Why did he choose that site for this awful deed? We do know that Page apparently participated for years in the so-called “hatecore” music scene, playing in a band called End Apathy that spouted a violent white-supremacist message. Like Adkisson, he imbibed a fearful message of suspicion and denigration of others; like Adkisson, Page’s life appeared to be spiraling into a frightening maelstrom of frustration, discouragement, and despair — none of which justifies their dreadful acts, of course, but once again we see a life unraveling into monstrous violence. Could any compassionate intervention have saved these deeply troubled men from themselves? We will probably never know, yet the question haunts.
Sikhism, not well known in the United States, in many ways embodies a polar opposite of the evil rage that assaulted our sisters and brothers in Oak Creek: it teaches compassion, the equality of women and men and indeed of all people, and emphasizes social justice and activism. Perhaps those of us who embrace Unitarian Universalism should reach out to the Sikh community not only with compassion for what they have endured, but because we might find ourselves allies with common goals.
It’s trite to point out how so many of the world’s religions point toward the universality of love and compassion; equally tiresome are the clichés about how religion divides us and creates enmity, from the Crusades of old to the conflicts of modern times: partition in south Asia following Indian independence, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, Northern Ireland, et cetera, et al., ad nauseam. These observations are overused because they both contain truths, and they are wearisome because neither of these simplistic sets of perspectives really helps us identify the ways in which we can be authentically religious and also lead constructive lives dedicated to progress, fairness and decency. Likewise, though our love of justice demands that we condemn these deranged acts of violence, that is never enough. Indeed, everything feels inadequate in response to something like the horrors that unfolded at Oak Creek and Knoxville.
So what can we do?
We can form and sustain alliances with other religious peoples and work together toward common constructive goals.
If we know an individual whose life appears to be plummeting toward destruction and self-destruction, we can try to offer support and point him or her toward help.
In a world full of suspicion, meanness and violence, we can try to live each day with compassion, patience, knowledge and open-mindedness.
No, it won’t bring back those who died in Oak Creek or Knoxville, or anywhere else that hate has left its deadly mark. But it is something.
Fantasy? Myth?
As a minister, I am constantly learning, and sometimes learning about completely unexpected things. At my congregation, my summer worship services have used movies that are currently in the theaters as the text. I chose the films by reading reviews and story lines online. I chose them before seeing them and sometimes before they were released. The movies have led me to new learning. This week, the text is the independent film, “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” Many critics have praised it as mythical and as fantasy, but my research has led me to believe that it is not fantasy. Indeed, filmmaker Benh Zeitlin said in an interview posted in a Patheos blog, “I don’t think of the film as a fantasy film, I think about it like what it’s like to be six. There’s no real separation between reality and fantasy a lot of the time.” (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tinseltalk/2012/06/interview-benh-zeitlin-on-beasts-of-the-southern-wild-falling-in-love-with-louisiana-and-prehistoric-monsters/)
What my research showed me was that the film was made on Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana. The people of the island are indigenous and Cajun, and their island home is literally disappearing. The story of this island and its people is not at all mythical. The people of this real and highly endangered community jokingly call the community “the Bathtub” which is the name Zeitlin chose for his fictional community. It is a very real, very troubling and very urgent tale of environmental racism, climate change and loss. It’s a true tale of loss of culture, loss of home, loss of livelihood and loss of community. It was once a rich and fertile ecosystem for farming and fishing. As we can see in the movie, it is still a beautiful place.
Before 1953, the only way to reach the island was by boat; in 1953, a road was built through marshland. Now, the marshland has turned into open water and the road is often flooded and inaccessible. The island was 11 miles long and 5 miles wide in the 1950s; now it is only 2 miles long and a quarter mile wide. Climate change has led to rising sea levels. Saltwater has killed the forests and made the land infertile. Saltwater flooding is due to the construction of levee systems to protect Louisiana and the canal dredging for the oil industry. State and Army Corps of Engineers decisions left Isle de Jean Charles outside of the levee system because of the cost. Fishing is decreased in part due to the BP oil spill. Once a thriving small community of 400 people, now about 70 people remain, and the tribal chief, Albert Naquin, has urged folks to leave the island. He is hoping that they could sustain their native culture on higher ground. They are probably the nation’s first climate change refugees.
Just like the fictional residents of “the bathtub,” many residents defend their right to stay in their homes. Edison Dardar, Jr. has posted a sign, “Island is not for sale. If you don’t like the island, stay off. Don’t give up. Fight for your rights. It’s worth saving.” Another resident, Delores Naquin, said, “You can’t just uproot – like this oak tree – you uproot it and it will die.” They’ve seen so many hurricanes that some the storms as an annual ordeal to endure in order to keep their connection to their home.
The people of the Isle de Jean Charles may be the first North American climate refugees but they are unlikely to be the last. It is troubling to witness people losing their homes and communities; all the more so because so much of the reason is due to human actions. They need help to find a new home and to sustain their community and culture.
“My tribal council and I have been traveling far and wide to meet with government officials to ask for help in finding a place for our community to live together again. They all want to listen to our cry, and then we never see or hear from them again. Yes, I get mad and frustrated but we will not give up the fight and ask for your prayers and support and ask that you spread the word about the plight of our community and hundreds of other communities just like us along the Gulf Coast that will soon lose our land, our home and sadly, our culture.” Albert Naquin, Chief Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw
This community is no fantasy. My theology says that we owe these people and their culture respect as all people have worth and deserve respect. They deserve to flourish as human beings. I believe that we are responsible to help each other. We need to listen to each other about how we can help. Climate change is no myth. We are also responsible to the earth. We must address climate change now. There is no time to wait.
(See http://www.isledejeancharles.com/island.php and http://www.pbs.org/newshour/multimedia/isle-de-jean-charles/ and Can’t Stop the Water on facebook)
Context and interpretation
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.
Looking Back to Look Forward
Last week, the Unitarian Universalist Association became only the second national religious body to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery, the 15th century papal doctrine that declared that when Christian Europeans landed in a place inhabited by non-Christian people, the Europeans could claim to have “discovered” the land, and had the right to possess it and the people on it.
The Doctrine of Discovery became the theological justification for European colonialism, slavery, genocide and many atrocities of history. In 1823, it also, thanks to Chief Justice John Marshall and the US Supreme Court, became the legal justification for the United States’ treatment of the indigenous peoples of our continent. According to this doctrine, the native peoples who were here before the arrival of Europeans in North America have no right to own their traditional lands, to practice their traditional religion on those lands, or to self-determination.
If this were just a horrible chapter of history, however, there would be little need to engage entire denominations in the process of repudiating it. We could read about it in a book and move on. The Doctrine of Discovery, however, is living amongst us today.
The Supreme Court still refers to it, believe it or not, most recently in City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation (2005), in which the court ruled that the Oneida Nation was not entitled to the sovereignty granted it in treaties with New York State even if they purchased the land seized from them in violation of that treaty on the open real estate market. Writing for the 8-member majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited the Doctrine of Discovery as legal basis for nullifying the Oneida’s treaty rights.
We tell the truth about our history so that we can do better in the future, and our nation can and must do better.
What can we do?
First, the United States can fully implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Adopted in 2007, this declaration asks UN member nations to negotiate, in full faith and with honor and mutuality, right relationship with the indigenous peoples among them. It says something that the United States was one of only 4 nations in the world to vote no. Since then, President Obama has declared his intention to follow the declaration, but his promise has not been acted upon. We can ask him to.
Second, the US can act to restore the rights of indigenous peoples to their lands and their religions. Native Hawai’ian people are prevented from practicing their ancient faith because their sacred sites are “owned” by the Federal government. That can and should be changed.
And finally, we as people can seek right relationship with the indigenous people of this land and with our common mother, the Earth. Do you know whose ancient territory you sit upon as you read this article? If not, find out. Find out where those people are today. Seek healing with honor and openness.
We learn about the past so that we can do better in the future, and the United States was founded on the principle that when we learn a better way we can make it happen. Let’s work together to fulfill the promise of our nation instead of repeating its ugly past.
Fear and Love at Tent City
There is a protest at Tent City tonight, the place where Sherriff Joe Arpaio holds thousands of immigrants in his self described ‘concentration camp.’ Where there is never any relief from the Arizona heat, where humiliation is a daily occurrence.
I’m with my people, in our bright yellow Standing on The Side of Love shirts that match the school buses that take us there, Unitarian Universalists in Phoenix for our annual convention. There are hundreds of us going, a couple of thousand maybe, mostly white, middle class, documented. And yet I am afraid.
I’m afraid because I’ve heard there will be counter-protestors, militia folks maybe, perhaps with the weapons which are legal to carry in Arizona. I’m afraid because it’s so hot, because I’m not exactly Olympics material in my physical fitness, because I am taking a teenaged child whose safety means everything to me.
And then, as we sit in worship and prayer, preparing to go, speakers from the local Latino community speak. A young woman describes her decision to commit civil disobedience, to be arrested by Sherriff Joe Arpaio, because she is tired of living in fear, of her whole community living in daily fear of being rounded up for real or imagined infractions and thrown into the Tent City, as they have been for the past 20 years. A young man describes arriving in the United States at age one, and now facing deportation –leaving the only country he’s ever known to be sent to one which is foreign to him.
And I begin to feel embarrassed by my fear. Not ashamed, not guilty, just embarrassed. As if I am a kid who grabbed too many cookies off the plate. And I think, this fear that binds us all, this fear of being arrested and humiliated and tortured in our own country: How does that hold us back? How does that diminish us? The young woman who chose to be arrested says, Yes, she was afraid, but she’s been afraid all her life. This arrest, in a way, freed her. I think of the words of the poet Audre Lorde, in her essay which is desert-island-essential to me, The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action:
What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?
As we get into our bright yellow school bus, a minister offers a prayer for our journey. I say to the driver, Are we holding our departure up because we are standing up praying? And she looks up with some annoyance and says, “No! I am praying!” As I begin to lead the crowd off the bus, she says, “Thank you so much for doing this. My husband is in there.”
At Tent City, I don’t see any counter protestors, with or without weapons. I see a small gaggle of brave locals, who have come to thank us for being there. One woman I speak with tells me that her inability to pay for a traffic infraction landed her there for ten days. She describes the endless heat, the lack of adequate drinking water, the horrible food. She says then, tears in her eyes, “My girlfriend is in for a year.”
Another man holds a sign charging Joe Arpaio with homicide. I ask him how many people have died at Tent City. He says at least five. I ask him if his church stands up to speak out about this. He replies sadly, “I am still Catholic but I do not go to church anymore. Most of us don’t. There was one priest who spoke out for us but they got rid of him.”
As I get back on the bus to go back to air conditioned comfort, a shower and clean pajamas, his words stay with me most. I wish that I could have responded, in Arizona or in my own home state of Minnesota, “You would be welcome in my church!” I know that the Phoenix UU church is doing fantastic work to be welcoming, to stand tall as an advocate for justice for immigrants. And yet I know that, while we stand on the side of love, sometimes we stand too far off to the side, in our fear, in our privilege, buffered, unwilling to disrupt our comfort. I offer a silent prayer and wake up this morning with his words still piercing my heart.
(Photos by Jie Wronski-Riley)
The Problem with Evil
It is a strong word, evil… and one those of us of Liberal Faith have not always engaged well. I mean the word… people of Liberal Faith have
often come into contact with evil, we just have trouble calling it that.
This week, I am in Phoenix, attending the Justice General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. Two years ago, when other denominations and institutions were being encouraged to boycott Arizona over the passage of the anti-immigration law known as SB-1070, our denomination was invited by both our Phoenix congregations and by our Arizona Allies for immigration reform to come to Arizona. We were invited to forgo much of our normal General Assembly business, and to come and allow their stories of facing the evils of our nation’s and this state’s current immigration policy to transform us. We were invited to stand in solidarity with them. We were invited to learn, grow, and transform with them.
And yet, in our desire to be present and to “make a difference” in this time of deportations and family separations and the dehumanization of being forced to prove your citizenship status because of your skin color, we of liberal faith who have come to Arizona this week also have the potential to cause harm, and to commit acts that would be viewed by some as evil… perhaps not in their intent, but certainly in their effect.
I believe in the ultimate unity of all things. That all of us are part of the greatest reality which I define with the name God. For me, God is all and is in all, the rocks and the trees, the birds and the bees, the smallest atom and the largest galaxy. All interconnected and interdependent, we are all a part of God. All of the divisions that we humans see or hope to see around us are coping mechanisms that we limited creatures have created to deal with an unlimited divine reality.
One of those coping mechanisms is the imagined division of good and evil. I am not saying that good and evil are imaginary, but rather that the division between them is. At their core, good and evil are human valuations of acts, intents, and events that happen within the wholeness that I call God. More than perception, naming something as “good” or as “evil” has a lot more to do with the values of the person doing the naming than it does being an inherent aspect of the thing being so judged.
Let me take immigration as an example. I believe that current federal and many state policies regarding immigration to be evil. I believe that the enforcement of immigration policies here in Maricopa County, Arizona, and in many parts of this state, is evil. And, that belief says a lot more about me than it does about the events here in Arizona themselves… or at least it says a lot more about the values that I hold at the center of my life.
I find immigration policy and enforcement, as it is currently being practiced in Arizona and beyond, to be contrary to by belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. I believe that the arbitrary border of the United States forgets that this land was unjustly taken from indigenous peoples, some of which are my ancestors. I believe that this nation depends upon the labor of many who are undocumented, and not recognizing them and regularizing their immigration status is a new defacto form of slavery. I believe that human rights are being violated every day in the name of border enforcement. I believe that people are not being given the democratic rights to representation and self-determination.
And so, I believe that the current form of immigration policy and enforcement is evil. I believe that because my principles, values, and religious faith call me to that belief… and as such I am responsible to do whatever I can, in good conscience, to bring an end to that evil.
You see, neither good nor evil have a metaphysical reality. I do not accept that there is some metaphysical being who embodies evil and brings it into the world. I believe that naming a metaphysical nature to evil (like the devil) is a way for humans to name something as evil without having to take personal responsibility for working to end that evil. A metaphysical center for either good or evil has the effect of disempowering humanity for their responsibility for what is good, and for what is evil in the world.
Because each and every one of us has tremendous capacity for good, and for evil. And, because not all human beings agree on our foundational values, principles, and religious faith, many of the things I view as supporting good are viewed by someone else as supporting evil. There are those here in Arizona who believe that all of these religious liberals coming to stand with and bear witness with our local allies is a form of evil. We each also have the capacity to commit acts that might be evil in our own eyes, were we to see them clearly.
An example of such would be if we religious liberals came to Arizona like “saviors” and attempted to paternalistically take leadership in this long running struggle, instead of coming to learn from those who have been in this struggle for so long. We are here at their invitation, to learn from them and to stand with them. If we were to try and engage this struggle in any other way, we would be in danger of committing another evil, in our own eyes as well as theirs.
Evil exists, and it is in us. We human beings create it, even when we sometimes don’t intend to… and what we define as evil is one of the clearest expressions of what we value ourselves.
Yours in Faith,
Rev. David