YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE

a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday January 25th, 2004


I was having a little trouble figuring out what I wanted to talk about this week. It wasn’t that I lacked inspiration; if anything, just the opposite -- I had too MUCH inspiration, too many things going on in the world, too many good ideas, all of which deserved fuller exploration and explication. Harry Emerson Fosdick once said that the modern preacher needed to enter the pulpit with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other, but even if I just stuck to the headlines it’s hard to know where to begin. Last week’s Iowa Caucuses, next week’s New Hampshire primary, and sandwiched between them, like the rich, creamy middle of an Oreo cookie, the State of the Union Address...and that’s just the timely political stuff. We’ve also got robots on Mars (evocatively named “Spirit” and “Opportunity”), the Patriots are headed for the Super Bowl, and then there are always timeless themes like peace and prosperity, justice and compassion, honesty, integrity, generosity, forgiveness...all of which have received ample illustration, both positive and negative, in recent days, as they do almost every day. There’s so much, it’s hard to know where to begin.

One thing though that has been on my mind quite a bit of late is something that Woody initially brought to my attention. In the most recent issue of The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, there is a comprehensive sociological examination of “Clergy as Political Activists,” which runs well over 100 pages, and reviews the political behavior of clergy across the theological spectrum in the 2000 Presidential election. There are articles surveying both evangelical and mainline Protestant ministers, Catholic Priests, Rabbis and African American ministers, and we Unitarian Universalists even get an article all to ourselves. “Clergy are well positioned to influence others politically,” the study found, because they “tend to be respected both individually and collectively,...are generally perceived to be spiritual and moral leaders who are likely to be attentive to the moral conditions of the world around them, and finally...[they] are generally well educated and engage in more ideological thinking than those with fewer years of schooling.” Well, that all sounded familiar enough; but the most interesting revelation of the study was the extent to which conservative, evangelical Christian pastors now match their more liberal brethren in their levels of political activism.

Historically, mainline Protestant churches have been deeply influenced by a movement known as the Social Gospel, a “theological perspective that stresses structural reform, [and] not just spiritual conversion and personal sanctification, as the means for social change,” and likewise “implies a need for pastors to become politically involved in order to help the less fortunate.” The theology of the Social Gospel served as one of the main inspirations for the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s, the Peace movement of the 1960’s, the Environmental and Women’s Rights movements of the 1970’s, the Sanctuary and Nuclear Freeze movements of the 1980’s, the anti-Globalization and Economic Justice movements of the 1990’s, and it continues to exert a powerful influence over the social justice ministries of mainline denominations today -- not just for Unitarian Universalists, but also for Methodists, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Lutherans, American Baptists, the Disciples of Christ, even many Reformed Jews and liberal Roman Catholics.

But over this same period of time, there have been two other interesting developments in American society. The first is that political liberals have grown increasingly disillusioned with religious institutions as vehicles for achieving social change. There are a lot of different reasons for this, but the main one, it seems to me, is that Churches tend to move “at the speed of Church” -- we are far too process-oriented, far too interested in achieving consensus before taking any action, to satisfy most Activists, and thus liberal/progressive politics in this country have become increasingly secular in the last half-century, so much so that pollsters now say that Church attendance has become one of the leading indicators of one’s political sympathies among American voters.

This brings us to the second development, which is that over the past two decades or so religious conservatives have become far more politically active than they were a generation ago. Much of this is due to the efforts of national organizations like the Christian Coalition, the Moral Majority, and Focus on the Family, and it almost goes without saying that this activism takes a far different shape from that of liberals. The activism of religious conservatives tends to be focused on issues of “moral reform” -- advocacy of things like prayer in public schools and support for “traditional family values,” opposition to things like abortion and civil unions. And it is centered around a set of beliefs sociologists call “the Civic Gospel,” which goes something like this: “The United States was founded as a Christian nation; Free Enterprise is the only economic system truly compatible with Christian beliefs; Religious values are under attack in contemporary America; Government needs to act in order to protect the nation’s religious heritage; there is only one Christian view on most political issues, and...it is hard for political liberals to be true Christians.”

I’ll doubtlessly return to this material again in more detail at some time in the future, since I find it fascinating and have only begun to scratch the surface of it, but the point I want to make today is that much of the bitter acrimony and political polarization we are experiencing in our country right now is, at bottom, a conflict between two very different understandings of what it means to be religious. It’s more than just a difference of opinion about policy options. Rather, it’s about two fundamentally contradictory world views, which sometimes use the same words, but in many ways are speaking entirely different languages: a conflict between a spirituality based on tolerance and mutual understanding, which sees all human beings as brothers and sisters created in the image of God, and thus embraces an ethic of pluralism and diversity, and a more rigid style of faith which often times views pluralism and diversity as intolerable violations of God’s Law, which “the faithful” are morally obligated to punish and suppress.

And I’ll tell you right now, I don’t know what the solution is. My faith tells me that if we all just do a little more talking with one another, eventually we’ll arrive at some sort of mutual understanding and a shared sense of purpose...but my experience says that the other side isn’t really interested in what I have to say...they’ve already made up their minds, and are basically willing to do or say whatever it takes in order to get their way. They’ll promise us the moon, tell us things they know aren’t true, spend money they no longer have to punish their enemies and reward their friends. And it all just leave me feeling frustrated, and not particularly tolerant or understanding. And yet, the irony of my situation is not entirely lost on me. I never really understood, until this President came to power, what the “vast, right wing conspiracy” of Clinton-haters was really all about. But now I kinda get it, and I even feel a little sorry for them...having to suffer through eight years of a leader they didn’t respect, and whom they felt didn’t deserve the high office that had been entrusted to him. When the mere sight of someone’s face, or even the sound of their voice, is enough to make you feel physically angry, you are stuck in an extremely unpleasant predicament -- which may be all the more reason for you not to like them, but also does little to help you get out of it. And while ranting and venting may make you feel good for awhile, in the long run what’s the point of haranguing the folks around you about something they aren’t really responsible for, and can’t actually do anything to change anyway? And it also occurs to me, as an historian, that there were people who felt this way about FDR -- the original “that man in the White House” -- and others who felt so strongly about Lincoln that they actually dropped out of the country and started a war of rebellion. And this, perhaps, is the greatest irony of all: that it is the descendants of the people whom Lincoln defeated who now control the political party he helped to create, and who are using their newly-found political power to dismantle as much of the New Deal as they can, ignoring the fact that in many cases it was their parents and grandparents who were the principal beneficiaries of it.

Sometimes politics appear to be about issues of policy -- specific steps that need to be taken in order to address particular problems. And sometimes politics appear to be about leadership: questions of character, vision, and personal integrity. But beyond leadership, beyond policy, are the more fundamental concerns of Peace and Prosperity, and whether or not the benefits of a peaceful and prosperous society are going to be broadly shared among the many, or narrowly concentrated in the hands of just a few. Are freedom and justice, education and health care, food, clothing and shelter, only for the wealthy, the privileged and fortunate, even the morally-deserving? Or should they be distributed as widely as possible, and as equally as equity will permit? What should a society do with its surplus, once the basic needs of its members have been met? Should it be invested for the public good? Saved for a rainy day? Left in the hands of private individuals, because they’ve “earned” it? Used to create art, music, literature, perhaps simply leisure itself? Or should it be given as charity to widows and orphans, the homeless and the less-fortunate, whether they “deserve” it or not? And who gets to decide, and how do these decisions get made? -- by everyone concerned, in an open and public forum, or merely by a handful of the most powerful and influential, and behind closed doors? These are not just political issues; they are also religious issues, involving fundamental questions of fairness and compassion, of right and wrong. The answers may seem obvious to you; I think they seem obvious to almost everyone, until we meet someone who sees things differently. And so the discussion begins again, from a slightly different perspective.

I don’t want to try to repeat here on Sunday morning things you can easily hear or read elsewhere. And I don’t think it really matters whether or not you know which candidates I’m going to support (or not support), or how I feel about specific issues, or even larger questions of public policy. I can’t imagine that it would be too hard to figure out, but it’s also beside the point -- because the real challenge is not to persuade you all to think just like me, but rather to get you to look at your own opinions from a slightly different perspective, until you’re certain you know both what and WHY you believe. And my main mantra for the fall is simply going to be "a free and fair election in which everyone who can vote does vote, and every vote gets counted." How can we possibly claim to be exporting Democracy to the rest of the world when we don't even practice it here at home?

Instead of a Constitutional Amendment to protect the sanctity of marriage, how about one eliminating the archaic Electoral College, and (while we’re at it) making election day a national holiday? Or if we are truly interested in dramatic electoral reform, we could institute proportional state-by-state representation in the House, thus putting an end to partisan gerrymandering once and for all. In the last Congressional election, only four challengers defeated incumbent Congressmen, and according to the New York Times, of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives, this year there may be as few as 30 where the outcome is truly in doubt. In Pennsylvania, there are half-a-million more registered Democrats that there are Republicans, yet Pennsylvania’s Congressional delegation with 12 Republicans and just 7 Democrats. Add in Florida, Ohio and Michigan, and the Republican Congressional advantage swells to nearly two-to-one, although the numbers of Democratic and Republican voters in these states are almost exactly equal. Proportional representation would mean the each political party would present a slate of candidates for the entire state, and representatives would be elected based on the percentage of votes polled by each party. Not only would it more fairly allocate representation according to the number of each party’s supporters, it would also make it slightly easier for minor party candidates to win election, once their support rises to a certain threshold.

I don’t actually expect any of these things to happen, of course. We’ve done things the way we’ve done them for so long, that even when it’s broken we are reluctant to try to fix it. Yet when the margin of victory in a national election is less than the margin of error, or when the winning candidate can poll fewer votes than the losing candidate and still claim victory, or when the outcome of an election is never in doubt in the first place, because the rules have been written in such a way that it is next to impossible for a challenger to defeat an incumbent, democracy itself is in danger. And this kind of threat to our freedom is far more serious than anything posed by foreign terrorists, since it strikes not just at buildings, but at the heart of our society itself. And we defend against it, not with soldiers and weapons, but with our own good hearts, and our willingness to stand up and say what we truly believe.


Top Ten Ways I, Howard Dean, Can Turn Things Around

10. "Switch to decaf"
9. "Unveil new slogan: 'Vote for Dean and get one dollar off you next purchase at Blimpie'"
8. "Marry Rachel on final episode of 'Friends'"
7. "Don't change a thing -- it's going great"
6. "Show a little more skin"
5. "Go on 'American Idol' and give 'em a taste of these pipes"
4. "Start working out and speaking with Austrian accent"
3. "I can't give specifics yet, but it involves Ted Danson"
2. "Fire the staffer who suggested we do this lousy Top Ten list instead of actually campaigning"
1. "Oh, I don't know -- maybe fewer crazy, redfaced rants"