The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, Oregon

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A WALL THAT PROTECTS, A WALL THAT DIVIDES

by Rev. Richard R. Davis

Sermon to UUCS 10/15/06

Unless you’ve been off meditating in a cave (which could be a good thing), you know its election season again – it’s a midterm election – in which we are voting on a number of candidates for high office in Oregon and in Washington D.C. I know who I plan to vote for, and I hope you vote for those same candidates because I do want them to win. And I fervently hope that there are some new faces in both houses of the US Congress. Why? Because there is too much greed, arrogance, corruption, malfeasance, dereliction of duty and incompetence in high places and I, for one, would like to see some new folks in power to steer our country ahead in some more sane directions. The directions we are heading in – toward the erosion of civil liberties and human rights and our nation’s moral standing in the world, deeper into a tragically ill conceived “War on Terrorism” and further along on the road to the ever widening gap between the rich and poor and outrageous health care expenses that send many citizens spiraling down into bankruptcy and lifts the drug companies up into the economic stratosphere, and then there is the head in the sand denial of global warming that threatens to disrupt all our lives and the lives of future generations. We’re headed on the wrong direction, being led there by politicians who seem to value their careers more than the common good. But I’m not going to lay my cards on the table and tell you which candidates I support for a couple of good reasons.

There is the practical financial angle. If I should I endorse any candidates from this pulpit and the government got wind of this, we’d be at risk for losing our nonprofit tax exempt status. That would be a costly matter. In our country the government cannot tax recognized religious organizations because, as our Chief Justice John Marshall noted back in 1819, “the power to tax is the power to destroy.” If the government could levy taxes on religious organizations there would be a temptation to lay a heavy tax burden on unpopular or minority religions. (Indeed, during the McCarthy era a number of liberal churches in California, including the Unitarian Church of Los Angeles, lost their tax exempt status simply because they refused to take a loyalty oath. A number of years later the Supreme Court overturned this punitive, unconstitutional practice by the State of California years later and the Unitarian Church was vindicated.) 

So religious bodies have this protection−the government can’t extract taxes from us – that is, as long as we keep our end of the bargain, which is that we cannot endorse political candidates. There are sound reasons for this – just as the government could wield its power to tax in an abusive way, religious communities could and probably would wield their powers in oppressive ways, if this was possible. Imagine if the Catholic Church or the Southern Baptists (the two largest religious bodies in our country) could tell all their millions of members which candidate to vote for – any candidate who ran for office would certainly feel a need to cater to these demographically dominant religious bodies, which would mean that smaller religious movements could get steamrollered by tyrannies of religious majorities. 

Our system of government was designed by some very astute people – brilliant political theorists - who were acutely aware of our human propensity to abuse power when any one of us has too much of it, and they designed an ingenious system of checks and balances that insures that no branch of government or the government itself gets to wield absolute power, nor that tyrannies of the majority in the general population could do that either. They knew from the examples of European history – with its oppressive reigns of assorted tyrants and theocrats – that we didn’t want this. 

Yet there is subtle political reasoning here, and it is easy for earnest, zealous folks who are not aware of the dangers involved in taking down the wall of separation between church and state to proclaim “we’re on a mission from God and this wall is standing in our way. It has to come down.” 

Consider the case of Katherine Harris, a member of the US Congress who is the Republican candidate for the Senate in the state of Florida. (You may remember that she served as Secretary of State during the contested presidential election of 2000). Harris – and she is not alone in believing this – says that the separation of church and state is “a lie we have been told,” and that “if you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you’re not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin.” Similarly, James Dobson, Founder of the conservative Focus on the Family said that if there’s a good Christian on the ballot, failing to vote for this candidate “would be a sin.” I wonder what George Washington, who wrote that: “the government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion” would think about such statements. 

Probably he and the others of our nation’s founders are rolling over in their graves when those words were uttered because they so clearly saw the danger that Harris, Dobson and so many others, who go around saying that “America is a Christian nation,” fail to see – our founders knew for a certainty that if this wall separating government and religion is not maintained – this wall that insures that neither the government nor religion can grab absolute power – then, in heaven’s name, all hell breaks loose. 

Consider the embarrassing problem our government faced a few years ago when they supported the delay of democratic elections in Algeria – they feared, and not without good reason – that if the elections were held, religious fundamentalists would be elected and then they, the fundamentalists, would institute an authoritarian theocracy, bringing an end the very democratic system that allowed them to gain power – this is the potential outcome when no wall exists between religion and the state, and in many societies where we say we want to export democracy, no such traditional separation of church and state exists, and it is hard to erect such a wall in a culture without much religious diversity. 

One of the reasons we have not had religious wars and bloody sectarian strife in this country as they have had or do have in so many other places in the world is that our nation’s founders did have the great wisdom to establish the principle of separation of church and state. This has created the right conditions for the prevention of such religious strife and the promotion of true religious freedom. This wall is a precious American institution and I respect it. I’m not going to tell you which candidates to vote for – not that my telling you would represent much of a threat to this wall’s strength – but I want to do my small part. 

Yet heightened religious strife is a threatening possibility because of politicians like Katherine Harris and because of some religious leaders who are full of zeal and see the wall as a barrier, not as a wall of protection. They want to gain political power to advance their religiously inspired social agendas. Speaking of such types, the 20th Century Unitarian minister A. Powell Davies wrote: “Anyone … who wants to impose an authoritarian religion upon America must face the fact that they are bent on destroying the very foundation of our national life; they are trying to rescind American history.” 

Then there are those religious leaders who have wondered if this is the way to go. Consider the case of the Reverend Gregory Boyd – pastor of a mega-church with several thousand members in Maplewood, Minnesota. Rev. Boyd is an evangelical Christian – he opposes abortion and doesn’t think that homosexuality is God’s ideal and has other beliefs that might cause us some discomfort.

A few years ago Rev. Boyd was attending another mega-church’s Sunday services on July 4th. At the end of the service the massive choir sang “God Bless America” and there was a projection on the movie screen in front of fighter jets flying over a hill silhouetted with crosses. This image of fighter jets and the Christian symbol of self giving love, the cross, juxtaposed, shocked Rev. Boyd and he thought “what’s this all about?” He thought very long and deeply about this and a bit later he shared his thoughts with his congregation in a series of six sermons – “The Cross and the Sword” – which resulted in about 1,000 members leaving his church. 

Briefly, Rev. Boyd said that “when the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses. When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.” He said that Christians should not seek “power over” others – by gaining political power, but rather should seek “power under” people by winning their hearts.” Furthermore, he lambasted Christians who focus on sexual issues like homosexuality and abortion saying “those are two buttons you push if you want to get Christians to act, but those are two buttons that Jesus never pushed.” 

Now, as you might guess, I don’t agree with Boyd on some important theological and social matters, but my admiration for him is off the charts. He spoke his truth at some risk and paid a price. (Yet I am pleased to note that many who left (mostly white, middle class members) have been largely replaced by people from other racial and ethnic backgrounds). I especially appreciate his understanding that people of faith should not ram their agendas down other people’s throats, but rather the appeal should be made to people’s hearts so that each person’s freedom of conscience is respected.

I especially appreciate his remark that “America wasn’t founded as a theocracy. America was founded by people trying to escape theocracies. Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn’t bloody and barbaric. That’s why our Constitution wisely put in a separation of church and state.” 

This wall of separation is a blessing to us all, yet its existence does leave a very big question hanging in the air, which is: “What role does religion have in politics. Are we supposed to sit on the sidelines, stay out of politics altogether?” 

Well, if religious people had sat on the sidelines we’d be a much different society. It was religious people who were at the forefront of the abolitionist movement (against slavery) and the civil rights movement. And I hope and pray that religious people will continue to step to the forefront in advocating for peace and justice and good environmental stewardship. 

But here are a couple of fine, but essential distinctions regarding political involvement and religion: First, I don’t think it’s good for a religious movement – ours included – to be wedded to particular political platforms or philosophies. We don’t have a theological creed because we believe that reality is too complex to reduce to a creed, and we understand how such creeds take away freedom of thought and conscience. It only follows that we should not hasten to embrace political creeds, either, for the very same reasons. 

I daresay most of us will probably be voting for the same candidates in the upcoming election, but I would never say that those who vote differently are dead wrong, or that we have political litmus tests in our congregations. I daresay that most of us are political liberals, but if we ever say this is the one true political orientation, then we will have stepped over the line. This is the costly mistake that the religious right is making all too often – they believe they have a monopoly on truth – both in the realms of religion and politics, and being filled with absolute certainty, they march forth on their crusades, which, as we know, never vanquish evil but create more of it. Those who do go on such crusades are lacking in humility and lose touch with their fully humanity – and this leads to a burning of bridges, a building of walls between people that divide the country into “blue states and red states,” a demonizing of those with whom you disagree. We are called to be smarter than that, we are called to see the way out of participating in the polarizing dynamics of politics today and, as the Christian Social Activist Jim Wallis puts it: “find common ground by moving to higher ground.” 

Yet we cannot find higher ground if the ground underneath us is being eroded and destroyed, and here is where people of faith can enter the political arena without breaching a wall of separation between church and state that serves us so well. We cannot support candidates for political office, but we can support causes which transcend partisan politics when we feel that they advance our truest values and promote the common welfare. That is why religious bodies can, do, and often should take stands on causes in the form of ballot measures in this state. We especially take stands on measures that advance or threaten our common welfare. A couple of years ago we voted as a congregation to oppose ballot measure 36, which did pass, sad to say, and changed the state constitution to forbid same sex marriage. Someday compassion and justice will prevail in that arena; we must be patient and persistent. 

This year although we as a congregation are not officially endorsing any particular measures, I will, very briefly, make these specific recommendations on two ballot measures and urge you to read some literature about them in the Fellowship Hall after the service. Perhaps not everyone will agree with my recommendations. That is your privilege.

First, we are in the midst of a health care crisis which leaves many citizens vulnerable. If you vote in favor of ballot measure 44 I believe it will be at least a small piece of the great puzzle in helping insure that more citizens can obtain prescription medications.

Second, I urge you to vote against the measure 48, which also sounds so reasonable, but could greatly diminish government revenues and adversely affect its ability to fund education, health and human services and other important and neglected needs.

I make these two recommendations because they especially concern the welfare of those who are most vulnerable and marginalized in our society – and these are the types of buttons that Jesus pushed, as well as the Hebrew prophets who came before him who served as his inspiration. 

Take this advice as you will. But above all I urge you look at the candidates and their positions closely and the implications of these; educate yourself on the various measures and then, letting your conscience be your guide, do vote. Too many people in our country neglect to vote and this is an insidious development which is eroding our democracy. So vote and encourage others to do so and share you passions and commitment in the process. Let yours be a voice that speaks not for narrow and selfish or sectarian interest, but a voice that speaks on behalf of the common good.