Entangling Alliances

February 17, 1985
Lakeland

In his Farewell Address, President George Washington cited the potential for the future strength of our nation, ... predicted that the time would come when foreign nations would not choose provocation which would alter our neutrality, and then said, “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” Popularly quoted as “no entangling alliances,” George Washington was right then; he would be wrong today.

With France, England, and Spain menacing the boundaries on the North American continent, a nation, newly-born, was compelled to be cautious. An entangling alliance with one European power might have disastrous consequences. A foreign power could have shrewdly exploited political tensions or bogus issues in order to seize or dominate the struggling young nation.

Times changed. No longer are we a courageous, but puny stripling of a nation. The United States is replete with power, and our responsibilities cannot be limited to the continental boundaries. What I would like to remind you is that no matter how much we close our minds, this world is indivisible, and ... a recognition of universals both in world politics and religion may make the difference between a livable earth and a charred cinder of a planet.

It took only a few years from the time of Washington for the process of entangling alliances to begin. The Monroe Doctrine, in 1823, began entanglements that continue to this day. John Quincy Adams, who was President Monroe’s Secretary of State, stated, “The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintained are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.” The background was that the newly independent Central American and South American countries, established by revolutions, were in danger of being reconquered by their former possessors, particularly Spain. However, the Monroe Doctrine would have just been idle words except for the British Navy to back up the policy. As a matter of fact, the British violated the Monroe Doctrine by taking the Falkland Islands in the 1830s, as well as involvement in other Central American and Caribbean adventures, with little protest, and no action, by the U.S.

We pay the price today in our turbulent policies in Central America. Under President Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. policy moved toward a stand that the United States must assume a measure of control over “unruly” Latin nations to prevent European action against them. This became known as the “Roosevelt Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. We became entangled, and still are: Nicaragua, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Mexico. We invaded and controlled and overthrew governments when it was believed to be in our national and business interests to do so.

So narrow patriotic vision eclipses the universals. We were willing enough to use the World Court when the Ayatollah Khomeini held American hostages. Recently, we scorned the World Court when the Nicaraguan government lodged complaints against us. Why are we unwilling to be scrutinized by a world court of law scholars?

There is a need to promote the universality of religion. Unitarian Universalists have a particular responsibility to encourage tolerance and appreciation. As Gordon Allport remarked, “One-channeled minds can never comprehend that the truth may have many channels.” We are aware of how the American people are being exhorted these days to “return to a Christian nation,” and anyone who does not agree is labeled with a bad name. In my view, much of the “rebirth of fundamentalist religion” is but a re-awakening of intolerant assertions and exclusive, partialistic salvation mottoes.

Dr. D.T. Niles, a Christian theologian of Ceylon, reminded his fellow Christians of that, when in a book he recalled a conversation with Professor Radhakrishnan, when that scholar was Vice President of India. The latter said, “You Christians seem to us Hindus to be rather ordinary people making very extraordinary claims.” The Western Christian made the usual rejoinder, “We make these claims not for ourselves but for Jesus Christ.” Then the Hindu asked, “If your Christ has not succeeded in making you better men and women, have we any reason to suppose he would do more for us if we became Christians?” [CJW notes: PASSAGE TO INDIA, JEWEL IN THE CROWN. Portrayed arrogant imperialism of the British Empire in Victorian [times]]

There is a tide in world events with a strong thrust toward universality. In the last few years, have we not acquired a greater appreciation of the religions of the East? There has been cross-fertilization – meditation techniques, Sufi mysticism, Zen stories and riddles. The scriptures of the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Taoist have wisdom to share, and many have come to an appreciation of the Eastern religions.

The day will come when more persons will recognize that the world is made up of essential unities and diverse non-essential customs and interpretations. Are we now mature enough to affirm that the basic core of religious experience is not limited to sectarian beliefs, but is a response at the highest level of self to the persistent demands of human relationships in one’s self, to others, and to the Universe? Have we grown enough to concede that any religious belief faces a double hazard: on the one hand that it might be false; on the other hand that it can be trivial?

The heritage of the free church, Unitarian Universalism, is one of truth-seeking, no matter where that quest leads us. If religion is more basic than any partialistic, historic, culturally influenced expression of sect or denomination, then we must ally ourselves, become entangled with the universals of our age. We must willingly become involved, because decent survival may depend on our acceptance of three conditions (which I believe inescapable):

First, this is an indivisible world.
Second, we possess a united destiny.
Third, we have a shared task.

We recite, “one nation indivisible” when saluting the American flag. This is a splendid aim that recognizes the need for a nation indivisible, even when our history has been dotted with divisions – North/South, racial hatreds, religious bigotry, industrial strife between capital and labor, the decaying cities, millions working for marginal wages. These and other tensions and social problems announce by their presence that we have been and are more divided than the salute affirms. International conflict of ideologies and nations point also to the dangers that threaten everyone. We need to pledge to an indivisible world even when sad and terrifying divisions and conflicts seem to make mockery of such an ideal.

In Richard Winston’s biography of Charlemagne, the author tells the story of the mysterious death of the oxen that hauled the military wagons of that 8th century emperor. The murrain, or cattle disease, spread through the land of the Franks. A wave of hysteria surged and a man named Grimoald of Benvenuto was blamed. The hysterical charges ignored the fact that the man had died some years previously. Wild rumors traveled that his spies spread mysterious poison on the pasture. “Scenting seditious activity, frenzied mobs seized totally innocent persons, bound them to boards, and flung them in the river. The astonishing part of it was, remarks a contemporary, that these persons gave testimony against themselves ... But if they had really been guilty, men, woman, and children would have had to start out with three cartloads each of poison. The hunt for foreign agents continued until the plague had passed of its own accord.”

The point of this old story for our modern day is that while this hysteria swept Charlemagne’s kingdom, the Near East[, North America, India, and Japan] were not disturbed by it. These were remote places; the world was divisible, and great empires could rise and wane with much of the world hardly aware of the existence of distant cultures.

We live more than a thousand years later. Hysterical terror of poison planted by foreign agents could infect the whole world in the few seconds ... the electric pulse would sound the alarm and blast off missiles with nuclear war-heads. Some scientists have expressed apprehension that some object like a meteor appearing on a radar screen might be mistaken for an enemy inter-continental ballistic missile. [CJW note: faulty computer] The response would be an immediate attack. It would make no difference whether it was a Soviet or American command decision that made the mistake, for the reaction, whether labeled hysterical or strategic, would have the same sure consequence of the end of the world for just about everybody. Shakespeare has Troilus say, “Fears make devils of cherubims, they never see truly.” Only an indivisible world – one world – can establish the quality of confidence to halt a nuclear strike.

One of the historians of American religious movements commented on the strong trend to liberal religion on the North Shore of Massachusetts in colonial days and the early times of the nation. Speaking of Salem, “This town was largely devoted to commerce with India, and most of the men in the three oldest parishes were connected with the foreign trade. Their contact with high-minded men in the Orient made them disbelieve Calvin’s doctrine that apart from Christ all were depraved. They were prepared for liberal teachings.” (Wilbur, OUR UNITARIAN HERITAGE)

In a similar way, many of us are in a state of readiness to acknowledge an indivisible world in which men and women must create peaceful, working alliances, or perish. The old divisions are [not] safe nor [are] old-fashioned power politics a healthy risk.

Nuclear fall-out will float down indiscriminately; it does not recognize national boundaries. There are no permanent scientific secrets, not even the “Star-Wars” research. The Soviet Union and [the U.S.] can match each other closely enough to bring nuclear horror to all. The Aladdin’s lamp of science is not just ours; others can rub it and achieve similar results.

When Victor Hugo was writing of Napoleon in LES MISERABLES, the author comments, “Napoleon has been impeached before the infinite and his fall was decreed. He vexed God. Waterloo is not a battle, it is the change of front for the universe.”

The astonishing advance of science, communication, understanding of human motivation, the terrifying ease with which the people of the world can be transformed into atomic dust – all these, too, represent a change of front for the Universe. The nature of Unitarian Universalist religion, it seems to me, requires continued reminder of the indivisible world in which we live.

Because this world is indivisible, it follows that we have a common destiny. Universalists used to affirm their disbelief in Hell and affirmed that all souls would be saved with the simple assurance, “We’re all going to the same place.” This is not only a reasonable theological speculation; in our day, it is an assured prediction of things to come.

We rebel at accepting this prediction at times. It’s comforting to believe that our nation, or our section of the country, or our town is somehow going to be exempt from the consequences of the acting out of the world historical drama.

We are all going to the same place. That some of us will feel the consequences less than others does not alter the converging directions on which the peoples of the world are marching.

Aldous Huxley wrote rather acidly (TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW) that the Disney films about animals acquire their tremendous popularity with young and old because of the bitterness of HUMAN life; that the fantasies of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Pinocchio and others permit us to escape for awhile from the human condition which we do not enjoy and the problems we can not solve. Now, while I think Huxley oversimplifies both Disney and the reasons people crowd in to see his films, is it not a sobering thought?

Somewhere in the Talmud, Rabbi Simeon ben Gamaliel commented, “peace is one of the three pillars that sustain civilization, the other two being justice and truth. Peace is the condition for the enjoyment of all other blessings.” Because we are human, we are going to look for explanations that fit with our prejudices. Yet in our time, the entangling alliances must recognize that there is no such unique condition as national salvation any more. This is one world.

Because this world is indivisible and because we have a common destiny, there is need to accept that we have a shared task.

We can not take our ease and be sure that Reagan, Schultz, Weinberger, Chernenko, Gromyko, Gorbachev will do the job for us.

In the Hindu religious epic, THE RAMAYANA, there is the story of the “Chamber of Complaint.” It seems that the king in this scripture, like many of the heroes of our scriptures, had more than one wife. In the case of the Hindu king, he had a harem. (LIVING RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, p. 138): “The Chamber of Complaint was a special chamber set aside in the harem, to which wives whose nerves had become frayed might retire to moan, wail, petition the king or sulk, so that their ill-temper might not pervade the whole palace, and also in order that their grievance might become known.”

The king’s oriental chamber of complaint is not the progressive kind of institution we would want to adopt. Yet, we need to promote the kind of thinking which will make our protests known to the governments of the world. It must be known that we share the concern of all those who see salvation for humanity only in an indivisible world with a common destiny. [CJW note: those phone/write – may become weary with writing letters or with responses that are ambiguous or discouraging]

It is said of Socrates that there was a reason why he never wrote of geometry and astronomy. “He refused to take any such scholarly studies because he wished to devote himself entirely to ethics and the betterment of the individual.”

So I submit to you that we need to beware of not making alliances in these disturbing, confusing years of the 20th century. We may not be prepared yet to say with Socrates, “I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world,” but we can be articulate travelers along that road.

Will those who seek peace in our world achieve it? I am not optimistic enough to say “yes,” nor am I pessimistic enough to say “no.” But I would ask with Thoreau, “Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly toward a thing and in no measure obtained it?”