A sermon by the Rev. Daniel Schatz, delivered at BuxMont Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, October 26, 2003

We are children of our age,
it's a political age.

All day long, all through the night
all affairs--yours, ours, theirs--
are political affairs.

Whether you like it or not,
your genes have political past,
your skin--a political cast,
your eyes--a political slant.

Whatever you say reverberates,
whatever you don't say speak for itself--
so either way you're talking politics.

Even when you take to the woods,
you're taking political steps
on political grounds.

Apolitical poems are also political,
and above us shines the moon
no longer purely lunar.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
And though it troubles the digestion,
it's a question, as always, of politics.

To acquire a political meaning
you don't even have to be human.
Raw material will do,
or protein or crude oil,

or a conference table, whose shape
was quarreled over for months:
should we arbitrate life and death
at a round table or a square one.

Meanwhile people perished,
animals died,
houses burned,
and the fields ran wild
just as in times immemorial
and less political.

- Wislawa Symborska

            One hundred years ago the state of Maine was sharply divided between Republicans and Democrats.  The little lakeside town of Naples suffered animosity so severe that the village had two stores, two libraries, and even two schoolteachers, a Republican and a Democrat.  Unfortunately, they only had one schoolhouse.  The Democrats and Republicans took turns locking one another out.  In the middle of this political turmoil, a reporter asked a five year old boy whether he and his family were Republicans or Democrats.  Thinking hard, the little boy scratched his head and said, “I think we’re Baptists.”

            Politics and religion.

            In the South about twenty years ago, a group began growing in power and influence within local conservative churches.  The movement soon spread to other parts of the country.  They published voting guides, surreptitiously and sometimes not so surreptitiously supported candidates, until ultimately the Christian Coalition was told by the Internal Revenue Service that if they did not curtail their political activities, they risked losing their tax exempt status.  That status was indeed taken away in 1999, and with it went several local congregations.  Meanwhile, hundreds of other churches have been left in tatters, irreconcilably divided between those who wished to pursue partisan agendas and those who decried the loss of the spiritual core of the faith.  The little known side effect of the infusion of politics into their religion was schism and grief.

            Politics and religion.

            One hundred and fifty years ago, a Unitarian clergyman named Theodore Parker developed a vision of American democracy, one with no remaining elements of aristocracy, monarchy, or that scourge he saw as the largest obstacle to the human spirit, slavery.  He criticized the Mexican War from the pulpit, and at great personal risk preached openly his resistance to any form of government that fell short of “direct self-government, over all the people, by all the people, for all the people,” a phrase that would later be adopted by President Abraham Lincoln.

            Politics and religion.

            Only four or five decades ago, Unitarian and Universalist churches struggled with the issue of civil rights.  Many who resisted change did so not because of open bigotry, but simply because the change itself was uncomfortable.  It was too much to hear, so many times, about integration and racial justice.  They wanted a feeling of comfort and refuge from church; they didn’t want to be challenged.  Others felt the challenge should go further than it ever did.  We owe part of who we are as a religion and as a society today to those courageous Unitarians and Universalists who decided that sometimes, justice takes precedence.  Some, like Rev. James Reeb, lost their lives for what they believed in.

            Politics and religion. 

            Politics and religion ­- these are the two proscribed dinner table conversations, the topics to be avoided at all costs.  Like it or not, though, you can’t ignore politics, or separate political views completely from religious views.  As the poet Wislawa Symborska observes, we live in a political age, no less so than Theodore Parker or James Reeb or Susan B. Anthony, or anyone else.  Our lives are infused with politics, and to ignore that fact is to waive the responsibility our faith calls us to.

            How many of our beloved Principles and Purposes call us to active involvement in the world outside our congregations?  I would argue that all of them do, because of the phrase that begins them all:  “We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association covenant to affirm and promote:”  “The inherent worth and dignity of every person,” “justice, equity, and compassion in human relations,” “the goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all,” the use of the democratic process in our congregations and in society at large,” and so on down the line.  We do not merely affirm these things, or believe in them, we covenant to promote them out in the world.  We cannot do this if our religion is self-contained, a Sunday morning “capsule,” divorced from anything that is going on outside our doors.  To ignore the affairs of the world would be to do ourselves and the world an injustice.

            James Luther Adams said it well when he wrote that “religious liberalism affirms the moral obligation to direct one’s efforts toward the establishment of a just and loving community,” and that this faith “must express itself in societal forms, in the forms of education, in economic and social organization, in political organization.”  “Without these,” he said, “freedom and justice are impossible.”  Our faith calls us to engagement with the affairs of the world, the issues of the day.

            At the same time, we struggle with balance.  It’s easy to ask the question, “If we are called to be involved in the affairs of the world, why don’t we as a congregation support candidates who agree with our values?”  The most obvious answer is that it is illegal, but this is no answer.  There has been a movement to repeal that law, and the Unitarian Universalist Association, along with many other denominations, has campaigned against the repeal.  I agree wholeheartedly and further submit that the entrance of partisan electoral politics into congregational life not only diminishes the spiritual life of a congregation but actually threatens to extinguish it completely.  One has only to look at the recent schisms in Southern Baptist and Evangelical churches nationwide to see where that road leads.  Do not imagine that a liberal partisan agenda would be any less insidious than a conservative one.

            It’s counter-intuitive.  At first we might ask, “Why can’t we urge support for individual candidates at our fellowship?”  But, as a colleague recently observed, what feels like freedom quickly becomes a prison.  We might begin by opening the door to electioneering by individual members, and then by groups of members.  We would then risk forgetting that politics is and must be an expression of the spiritual life, not the other way around.  Moreover, the political powers that be are quick to recognize congregations that they can use to support their political goals, through well-meaning members who care about the world.  Two things begin to happen:  One is that a congregation loses its breadth of mission, becoming only or primarily an agent for party political agendas.  This is what has happened to many churches who have become involved with the Christian Coalition. 

            In the rush to pursue a political agenda, they began to forget that central to any congregational life is healing the broken, lifting the voiceless, and living a faith of love.  The second is that the foundations of faith that initially underlay that political agenda become lost.  The spirit begins to serve politics, rather than the other way around.  That loss is too great for anyone to bear.  I mourn to see any congregation – Unitarian Universalist, Pentecostal, Jewish, or otherwise – become a tool of anyone’s political agenda, no matter how much I may agree with that agenda.

            The separation of church and state exists in part to protect the right of religions to be religions and not political organs. 

            Our political views and activities are the societal expressions of an inward spiritual life.  Our spiritual views are not the individual expression of a political life.  The spiritual takes precedence, and this is true even if we realized our political views long before we were able to put names on our spiritual ones, as I suspect is the case for most of us.  The spiritual life is our foundation, and our political views and activities are among its societal expressions.

            In our Unitarian Universalist churches and fellowships, we follow a diversity of spiritual paths.  We’re proud of this; it’s who we are.  We are Humanists and Christians, Buddhists and Jews, Pagans and theists.  We come together as congregations united in our diversity.  None of us, I hope, would ever think about calling someone unthinking or unfeeling or uncaring because they are a Christian, or a Pagan, or a Humanist.  When we talk with one another about our theological and spiritual differences it is with respect, an open ear, an open mind, and support for one another in our diverse spiritual journeys. 

            Should this be any less so when we speak of the societal expressions of our spiritual journeys?  Should we speak with any less respect for one whose Unitarian Universalist Theism or Buddhism leads that person to vote for a candidate we personally might find repugnant than for someone whose Unitarian Universalist Humanism or Paganism leads them to a particular spiritual practice in the family?  Both are the results of a long and often arduous search.  Neither is final.  We all continue to question.

            If we fail to open our hearts and minds to those who disagree with us politically – at least within our own community – we risk losing that which is most beautiful about our religion.

            This doesn’t mean we never permit ourselves to talk about our political views in fellowship, any more than we never talk about our theological ones.  They go together and cannot honestly be separated.  We live in a political age.  Our faith demands to be lived in society.  But in a fellowship of spiritual diversity, we do not campaign for or against a particular candidate any more than we would campaign for or against a particular theology.  It would be, at the least, bad manners.

            Instead, we talk together respectfully and with open minds.  At our best, we keep our conversations grounded in our Unitarian Universalist ideals and principles, both in the way we conduct our conversations and in the issues we discuss.  We support one another in our spiritual and political journeys, and most importantly we encourage one another to be involved in the process. 

            We talk together respectfully.  This means speaking the deep truth of our hearts without expectation that the rest of the world or even the person we are talking to will believe and support what we believe and support, but with every expectation that they will believe in us and support our struggle with the issues.  This is part of the great principle upon which the free pulpit is based – ministers are called to speak the truth as we see it and when we deem it of great enough importance – but with freedom comes responsibility.  Not only would a minister be foolish to presume that everyone already agrees with his or her views, but that minister would be remiss in duty if she or he ceased to minister to those who most vehemently disagree.  The foundations of justice are in community, small as well as large.  In religious community, if nowhere else, the spiritual life comes first.

            Yet our spiritual life does call us to involvement in the world.  We should work together as a congregation or as groups within a congregation, or at least as individuals, for what we believe is right.  There are some rare issues – never candidates, but issues – around which we as a congregation may come to consensus and move to action.  Consensus is an often misunderstood term.  It doesn’t mean that everyone has to agree, but it does mean that the course chosen must violate the conscience of no one.  Consensus takes time and doesn’t always happen, but when it does it is worth the effort.  There are times when we need to seek consensus and take a stand, not merely because we can agree, mostly, but because this issue speaks to our values as Unitarian Universalists.

            Issues of freedom and process are at the very core.  Above all I believe our religion calls us to the aid and increase of the ideals of justice, equity, compassion, freedom, dignity, community and democracy.  Our religion calls us to action against bigotry, hatred, injustice, selfishness.  That may at times be uncomfortable, especially when we ourselves are the beneficiaries of that which we deplore, but deep faith can not always be comfortable.

            Beyond that core, we may or may not be able to come to meaningful consensus.  Instead of an entire congregation, we may have groups within a congregation working with a given issue – not to convince everyone who disagrees that they are right, but simply to support one another in the path their spiritual journey is leading them through.  If the rest of us learn something through these kinds of processes, so much the better.

            For the most part, the issues closest to our hearts will be as diverse as the spiritual journeys that have led us to care so much about them.  But there is one set of issues that always takes precedence.  These are the issues of the process itself.  We not only support, but promote democracy in our society at large.  This is an article of faith with us. 

            To be meaningful, that faith must have real societal impact.  Living our faith includes voting our conscience, but is more than that.  Living our faith means encouraging others to vote their conscience, whether they be Republicans or Democrats, Greens or independents.  Give rides, work voter registration tables, harangue your friends until you know that they have voted– because the most important and central issue of democracy we as Unitarian Universalists are called to promote is democracy itself.  Every one of us is a guardian of  self-government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people.  Every one of our congregations should be active as a congregation in voter registration, in giving rides, in supporting the very processes upon which we as a nation depend – if not in this coming election, than in the following one.  There is no issue more important and no activism more meaningful, and in which we can have more of an impact, than the promotion of democracy in our community and our nation and our world.

             Politics and religion. 

             We Unitarian Universalists live our spiritual journeys in many ways, including social action and activism.  Our religion encourages multitudinous paths, and reviles only one – that of apathy, inaction, resignation.  Though the issues and policies we support are diverse, our care unites us.  Our compassion for one another and for all souls, our visions of the world as we would have it be, our commitment to the service of democracy, our tradition of a faith lived in society, lift us and call us to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to comfort all who mourn, to do justice and to walk humbly in hope.

             May we ever be true to our call.