Family Foundations – On Shifting Sands?

December 1981
Lakeland

If one takes at face value much of the invective and hyperbole of the “New Right,” the Moral Majority, and similar self-appointed moral judges, the trouble with our nation is that liberals, humanists, and other assorted sinners have undermined the traditional family. The Program Committee has scheduled “Family” as our December theme. The timing is correct. The last days of November and the month of December seem appropriate for this theme. Family consciousness is at its high point of celebration ... cooking delicacies, shopping for family presents, decorating home and hearth, re-unions of family members, and a priority for family activities. Except for religious festivals, organizations have learned not to schedule many meetings in this period.

Let’s look at the family, the misdirected focus of the New Right, the family idea in history, the family today, the reality that there are different strokes for different folks, and lastly the undergirding values which support the emerging varieties of family. The perspective from which I speak is that primary principle in the constitution of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the worth and dignity of every human being.

When the Moral Majority and their ilk pound us with their insistence that traditional family must be restored, I tend to agree with Martin Marty that is is a fundraising invention. As I will discuss, I doubt whether any one traditional family pattern was ever widely established or deeply ingrained. I will mention one attitude of the Moral Majority that seems thoroughly inconsistent – [that] Christian religion should be taught in the schools [but] teaching of sexuality must be kept at home. If sexuality education can be trusted only to parents, why should religion be delegated to teachers who would be constrained from illuminating the manifold differences in religious thought and practice? Normal Lear reported in the June 1981 issue of People for the American Way that one branch of the Religious Right, named the Family Protection Lobby, blocked a bill [in one state] that would have permitted school nurses to answer students’ questions about venereal disease, pregnancy, and drug and alcohol abuse. That’s protecting the family??

Family – home? Do you recall the dialogue between the farmer and his wife in Robert Frost’s poignant poem, The Hired Man? The hired man, a drifter, tired and sick, has come to the farm.

"Warren," she said, "he has come home to die:
You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time."

"Home," he mocked gently.

"Yes, what else but home?
It all depends on what you mean by home.
Of course he’s nothing to us, any more
Than was the hound that came a stranger to us
Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail."

"Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in."

"I should have called it
Something you somehow haven’t to deserve."

The Unabridged [dictionary] gives several definitions of family which reflect the way the meaning of “family” has changed through many centuries:

1)The body of servants of a house or the retinue of a person of state or authority
2)The body of persons who live in one house and under one head or manager; a household including parents, children, and servants and as the case may be, lodgers or boarders. For census purposes sharing a common dwelling and table, between and including the extremes of a person living alone and the inmates of a hotel, prison, poorhouse, asylum.
3)Those descended from a common progenitor – the group formed by parents and children, the fundamental social unit of civilized societies.

One scholar of the family (Chas Rosenberg, THE FAMILY IN HISTORY) writes,

“The family is a primary reality not only in terms of individual emotional development but in terms of social and economic development as well. The family functions as a mode of structuring sexual relationships, kinship, relationships and child-rearing – but also as a source of labor and capital accumulation, as a mechanism for the transmission of property and the imposition of social control.”

That is too abstract. What would you think of the system in medieval times (See Philip Aries, CENTURIES OF CHILDHOOD, p. 365) and taken from an account by an Italian after a visit to England: “The want of affection in the English is strongly manifested toward their children; for after keeping them at home til they arrive at the age of seven or nine, they put them out, both male and females, to hard service in the houses of other people, binding them generally for another seven or nine years. And these are called apprentices, and during that time they perform all the most menial offices; and few are born who are exempted from this fate, for everyone however rich he may be, sends his children into the houses of others, whilst he, in return, receives those of strangers into his own.” The Italian writer insinuated that the English took in other people’s children because they thought in that way they would obtain better service than they would from their own offspring. In fact, the explanation which the English themselves gave to the Italian observer was probably the real one: “In order that their children might learn better manners.”

Any reading of social history will reveal that while the family is a primary social foundation, the ways of the family have changed again and again under the pressure of economic, political, and social realities of a given period and place. The nurture and nature of rearing children has been a requirement, but the methods and assumptions have huge variations.

Incidentally, I like what novelist Peter deVries said, “the value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.” I must be a slow learner because I need to get the hang of it.

What of the family today? There is a rosy image and idealized stereotype that persists. The “ideal” American family is Father and Mother – daddy breadwinner, mother housewife, two children, and probably Rover the dog, Tiger the cat, two autos in the garage attached to the suburban split level with a barbecue in the backyard and a copiously notated social calendar hung over the kitchen telephone. That pretty picture applies to about one of every sixteen families in our nation today.

At least 1/3 of marriages end in divorce. Indications are that it will rise to 50%. That is an alarming statistic to many. But it is one of my observations reiterated often enough so that it has become one of my cliches, that just as there are bad divorces and good marriages, so there are good divorces and bad marriages.

Within [the past] few weeks, I attended a wedding celebration in my family. At the family dinner the night before the wedding, the party included the groom’s parents who had been divorced, the mother accompanied by her second husband, the bride’s parents who had been divorced, her father accompanied by his second wife, the bride’s sons by a prior marriage, the groom’s son by his prior marriage, the groom’s sister who has been married twice. There was one couple who had been married only once, the groom’s younger brother and his wife. Now while the location of the placecards had been rather carefully planned out, there was still a general joviality and festivity with no observable hostilities or recriminations. And in today’s world I do not believe that was a particularly remarkable gathering, [nor an] uncommon arrangement of family life today.

Divorce can be expected to be a substantial experience for many – difficult, traumatic, and divisive but nevertheless an intrinsic aspect of our culture. One cause, not usually noted, is our increased life expectancy. The historian Hugh Thomas writes (p. 407) “At the time when statistics began to have any meaning at all, in the 16th and 17th centuries, early death mean that few marriages lasted more than 15 to 20 years (many marriages last longer than that today). In the past, marriages were shortened by death; today, divorce.”

Another inescapable fact – about 1/3 of the 44 million school-age American children have mothers who work full-time. A Department of Labor study predicts that 70% of women will be working outside the home by 1990.

What is the family today? There is the rosy image of the lawn-encircled, mortgage-burdened suburban ideal – one in 16 families as I said. There is also the single-parent family, the mother, usually, who rears her child or children amidst a circle of heavy pressures – working, child care, taking care of the home after work, trying against odds to find moments for social life and some measure of individual fulfillment.

There is the single parent, usually father, who lives alone except for the limited times he may have the children – a night a week or a Saturday. When he is ethical about it, he has heavy financial burdens paying for child support and, perhaps, alimony.

Then there is the married couple, each of whom may have had children by a prior marriage. Sometimes the children in the home are hers, his, and theirs. Anyone who dismissing the probability of sticky problems in this and other similar situations is just naïve about our human emotions, human egos, and human needs.

Consider also the man and woman who live together without the certificate of legal marriage. There may be as many as ten million such persons in this nation, sometimes with child or children in the home.

Also, in considerable number are persons of the same sex living together, homosexual and lesbian relationships – or platonic. Many of the households have ... stability, mutual affection, sharing of goals and goods, not unlike the traditional male/female married couple.

I would surmise also that there are many who have separate domiciles but in all other respects have the quality of a family living under one roof.

I’m sure that you could add other varieties to the many arrangements which in terms of the living qualities involved can be called family, even though not “traditional” family. But as I have indicated, the idea of family has not fixed or certain dimensions and probably never has had.

[CJW insert: Mentioning a few weeks ago that I was going to say something about family in Dec., [a] person – [who] knew more about TV programs – Archie Bunker, Dallas, Three’s Company, One Day at a Time, The Odd Couple, Harper Valley PTA ... any soap opera, realities and wishes and large numbers of people would not be on air if the programs were not identifying with millions]

Thus as in politics, occupation, economics, the idea of family has different strokes for different folks. The options for family are assuredly going to increase. There are communes where a number of people live together for ideological, religious, or economic reasons.

We are certain to see more congregate living, where persons will share one roof for a variety of reasons. The increasingly burdensome cost of housing will demand this. There are many houses where there is unused living space where persons will share a roof, meals, expenses and social interaction. Maggie Kuhn, that feisty, bright, determined Grey Panther, is both a practitioner and advocate of homesharing. The Washington Spectator reports that because of her leadership there are now nearly 100 programs across the country that promote homesharing. “In Seattle, for example, there is homesharing for seniors. You are a young couple looking for a place to live. The office matches you with a couple whose house is too large for their own needs. A three week trial period gives you a chance to see whether the arrangement will work.” I predict that in this decade alone, the number of persons choosing some form of congregate living will increase much more than any present estimate. Good reasons for such arrangements will provide the impetus – economics, the wiser use of presently available housing, fuel and energy, combining of personal resources, our need for human relationships, security, and new experience.

It will be an opportunity to develop not patriarchy or matriarchy, but share-archy (if I may coin a rather clumsy word). Share-archy of course is the best base for families with a certified marriage license or any other arrangement.

In all this, as I indicated at the beginning, there must be a religious base – the worth and dignity of every human being. Those who are greedy, immature, insensitive, exploitative, conniving, and their victims will experience failure. But is this not also just as true as those couples who go into legal marriage?

Martin Buber maintained that there is no community without a common center – that common center for any variety of family in the present and in the future will revolve around a nucleus of loyalty, love, trust, sharing, self-esteem, and respect for others.

A book extensively reviewed in the New York Times is MOTHER LOVE (Myth and Reality) by Elizabeth Badinter, a French writer. It has causes a furor in her native country and probably will here too, as it becomes known.

Mother love, she maintains, is not a gift, but learned. But what fits as a conclusion to this talk is her response to her children when they were “teased by their friends, who said, ‘See, your mother doesn’t love you.’ She had prepared them, beforehand, by telling them, ‘Love is not automatic. We built it together. I choose to love you.’”

Such is the foundation value of family, whatever super-structure it may assume.

What’s your view?

War and Peace – Is a Genuine Survival Ethic Possible?

October 1981
Lakeland

Updated and revised from October 15, 1967, Plainfield

“Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing?” That was the protest of the good Bishop in LES MISERABLES after his visit with a man condemned to death. But I guess that’s one of the differences between fact and fiction – even great fiction. In fact, men have always pre-empted the right to assign their fellows to death. War is the most terrifying and formidable of the ways men and women of the human family willingly, even eagerly, accept death in war as necessary to accomplish goals labeled patriotic, or named as the war to end wars, or because it is God’s will.

War and Peace? Is a genuine survival ethic possible? In attempting to wrestle with the question, inevitably there is repeated the old cliché that there always have been wars, there always will be. In all candor, most people in this nation seem to support the current escalation of money and the use of most of our technical and scientific talent for war preparation, the current euphemism for which is to “close the window of vulnerability.” What is presently projected for the next few years is 1½ trillion dollars! That enormous sum beggars our imagination. But the consequence seems inevitable. There can be no steady, substantial gains in housing, productive employment, new sources of energy, nutrition, medicine and health under any economic system when our treasure and talent is so hugely channeled to prepare for a war, the outcome of which most probably will be the extermination of life on this planet.

Two weeks ago I raised questions about violence on our streets and in our homes – one possibility was not mentioned. Since then, I came across these sentences written by a Jesuit priest, Richard McSorley:

“The taproot of violence in our society today is our intention to use nuclear weapons. Once we have agreed to that, all other evil is minor in comparison.” That statement is not demonstrated social theory, but an intuition, and I have a hunch there is more depth to such an intuition that we might easily concede.

Richard Watt (Christian Century, 4/8/81), who has been co-ordinating a pilot project in a peacemaking ministry in Northeast Ohio, writes, “The starting point for peace education is consciousness-raising, for most church people, like American citizens generally, are simply unaware of the awesome nuclear mathematics and of the strategic doctrines that make nuclear war unthinkable. Nonetheless, people are remarkably open to the message that the arms race must be slowed, stopped, and reversed, and that the time to begin is now. If, as we are told, some 75% of the populace supports increased military spending, I argue that this is a very fragile consensus responding to very limited information. Let the people learn a few basic facts:

that a single Poseidon submarine can destroy every large and medium sized city in the Soviet Union (and we have 41 Polaris and Poseidon submarines);

that a mere 400 to 500 nuclear bombs could destroy two-thirds of the Soviet Union’s industry and 40 million of its people; we possess some 11,000 strategic nuclear bombs;

that from 1971 to 1977 the U.S. sold $56 billion worth of arms, three times the total of the preceding 20 years, and that over 70% went to developing nations;

that in the mid-70s, the Shah of Iran was our number one customer for arms, spending nearly a third of Iran’s gross national product on the military by ‘75-’76;

that if one handed the Pentagon a $1,000 bill every hour of every day, it would take over 200,000 years to hand over what we will spend on the military during the 1980s.

And Richard Watt wrote that prior to the recent mammoth increase for B1 bombers, MX missiles, and hardened silos.

War has always been cruel. 2500 years ago, the Hebrew farmer killed by a sword-thrust by the Assyrian invader who swept down like a wolf on the fold, was just as dead as the Japanese children incinerated at Nagasaki. Atomic deaths are quicker, perhaps. But we must remember that any geographically-confined war, such as such as Iran and Iraq, or Afghanistan and the Soviets, can spread. Destruction can become global. Lives not destroyed by the fusion blast or radiation may die from germ or chemical weapons. At stake are not just armies, navies, and air forces, but the planet itself. The powers of the world have available the forces of fire and fever to destroy people and planet and possibly every living organism.

I’m not sure that listing the potential terror items stir us to change our ways of thinking and behaving about war. But Abraham Maslow reminded, “To be untroubled when one should be troubled can be a sign of sickness. Sometimes smug people have to be scared into their wits.” (p. 196, TOWARD A PSYCHOLOGY OF BEING)

What is a genuine survival ethic? This is not a time to discuss ethical theories. Therefore, a terse definition: by a survival ethic, I mean one that will provide a political, economic, and communications climate in the world which will prevent the exchange of missiles, fire, and poison on a scale that will destroy the peoples of the world. By genuine, I mean an ethic which does not require that any nation or culture be deprived of the values it cherishes and believes necessary. In our country, for example, no genuine survival ethic would provide for the end of our individual liberties and civil rights. No 1984, “Big Brother” overrule could constitute a tolerable survival ethic for us. But we must not assume that our choices must also be adopted by other nations. Some nations will, as some have, choose varieties of communism. Other systems will evolve which will not fit into the political/economic definitions of today.

A genuine survival ethic for our world will tolerate many choices in the framework of world peace through world law. Our ability to reason must be applied to problems; we must open our feelings to the pain of people’s needs everywhere; and we must never stop re-evaluating ongoing efforts in the light of experience and consequences.

This is not to say that we should be naïve in this world where the struggles for power will continue – a contest to win markets, regional, or continental influence; where opposing ideologies are reluctant to make concessions that might be interpreted as weakness; where the grim contests between the have and have-not nations will increasingly add to the dilemmas of who gets what, how, and when. Realism dictates that governments are seldom if ever generous much beyond their own self interests.

Sidney Harris wrote in a recent column,

“While it is true that those who take a hopeful view of matters often accomplish more than those who take a dismal view, it is equally true that optimism can betray us into more follies than pessimism can.

“What is rare and valuable in any person is a combination of these two attitudes, which might be summed up in the Old West maxim, ‘Trust everybody and cut the cards.’

“If you are going to trust everybody without cutting the cards, you are going to be badly cheated sooner or later; contrariwise, if you trust nobody you are going to deprive yourself of more opportunities than you will avert losses.”

In such a stance of cautious effort, there are at least two areas of information/communication where we can be more alert to what is happening, otherwise we may find ourselves so far down the road to global war that there can be no turning back. We must penetrate the jargon, and [we must] understand the forces that are a hazard to world peace.

Abraham Lincoln’s philosophy has been summarized, “In any great public crisis, find the truth and put it into plain words before the people. Then give them time and they will vindicate you.” When obscure phrases and terms are used which fail to indicate the devastating nature of military proposals, then there is need for each of us to translate into plain words in order to test proposals with clearer reason and deeper feeling. There is a need to penetrate the jargon of the military establishments (see UNESCO COURIER, Aug-Sept 67).

Examples: the atomic bomb which destroyed Hiroshima has been called a “nominal bomb.” Somehow the impression is given that nominal is minimum or almost a light touch of explosive. But Hiroshima was hit by a bomb with the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT. The military describes this as a 20 kiloton bomb – and the dimension of 20,000 tons of TNT seems to have become blurred.

This also becomes obscure when talking about megaton bombs. The first test H-bomb we set off at Bikini atoll was 15 megatons. The U.S.S.R.'s H-bomb (1961) was 60 megatons. Megaton sounds scientific and technical, but a megaton is the equivalent of 1 million tons of TNT. When one comprehends that our experimental bomb at Bikini atoll was a force of 15 million tons of TNT and the Russian-tested H-bomb was the equivalent of 60 million tons of TNT; and contrast that with the history that the Allies dropped a total of only 1.2 million tons of explosives during the 6 years of war and destroyed cities, industries, population and railway systems. Today there would be no place on any continent to hide when the great powers exchange their nuclear missiles on some future doomsday.

We need to penetrate the jargon in other instances:

Much is said of “tactical battlefield atomic weapons.” But the most of those are as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb, and romantic names such as the Davy Crockett should not lead us into overlooking their power to destroy persons in wide areas, not just gain tactical advantages in wars limited to soldiers.

When one reads military staff talk about “counter force strategy,” does one always understand that this means the destruction of enemy cities and the eradication of populations?

Or that “counter-value strategy” is the policy of “directing strategic nuclear attack not on military targets but on centers of population and industry?”

Or that “bonus kills” refers to those who die as a result of radiation poisoning from fall-out as compared to those who are immediately killed by blast and firestorm?

One megadeath is the death of a million people; megacorpse, one million dead bodies; “overkill,” the power to destroy the entire population of any enemy country more than once.

The neutron bomb has been given the go-ahead by our President and his advisers. “Neutron” somehow seems a harmless word. Of course neutron is a term in atomic physics – but also, somehow, it doesn’t sound so terrible – neutron hints of neutral or a neutered cat which no longer is potent.

But even though the blast impact of a “neutron” bomb may be less than a Titan missile, the deadly, spreading radiation will not be, cannot be limited by the boundaries of a battlefield in East Germany or Poland.

We need to understand the jargon.

Secondly, we must try to understand the forces, deliberate and unwitting which combine to continue the enormous build-up of military power and consequently, reducing to a trickle, comparatively, available resources for great needs on the civilian domestic scene.

When President Eisenhower delivered his last speech as President, January 17, 1961, this General-President whose entire career (other than a brief term as President of Columbia University) was in the military, warned against a new development in American political life which never before had existed to such a degree. He identified it as the “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry ... the total influence is felt in every statehouse, every office of the federal government.” He further said, “only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can so manage this complex that security and liberty may prosper together.”

By and large we have not been alert and knowledgeable as Eisenhower advised.

In 1963, then-President Kennedy remarked that defense, space or atomic activities absorbed about 2/3rds of the trained people for exploring our scientific and technical frontiers.

Eighteen years later the war budget has ballooned – what is it annually, $142 billion? $170 billion? The military-industrial complex has increased its strength and power over both the political and economic nature of our nation.

The conversion of jobs to peaceful products and services has never been planned seriously. Yet this is an issue that cannot be avoided permanently. But it has been avoided since World War II.

It is in these such circumstances – the difficult jargon and the forces we fail to understand completely (and there are many such forces) – that there must be progress to world peace through world law and treaty. One may argue with various plans; or criticize harshly the United Nations. But the UN has not been trusted with machinery to stop disputes before they explode – machinery for negotiations, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement and more use and sanction of the World Court. But plainly needed is much more trust by the large nations in such an international peace-keeping process – or a better one if it can be planned and used.

There is a story of the wars between the Royalists and the Cromwell Puritans in 17th century England. A Royalist general before fighting at the battle of Edgehill prayed this way, “O Lord thou knowest how busy I shall be this day; if I forget thee, do not forget me. March on, boys.” This is rather typical – not only in prayer but in reference to such organizations as the U.N. “If I forget thee, do not forget me.” Well, a world of peace through law won’t work if we expect it to remember us while we forget the responsibility to take the hopeful risks of peace rather than the fatal chances of war.

Some of us remember the growth of totalitarianism in the 20s and 30s. The dictators ruled by force through obedient military establishments whose responsibility it was to carry out orders, regardless of what those orders might be. This was shown clearly in the Nuremberg trials. But the dictators acquired and held power because they had the explicit support or the silent acquiescence of the largest segment of people – the middle and upper classes, people like ourselves, by and large.

We, too, will be silent or acquiescent unless attitudes change. There can be no growing influence of public opinion for peace unless public opinion exerts its force. How [can we] change attitudes? There are many ways. But I would like to speak of just one attitude change which would help build a world of law, not war – we to accept and communicate an expanded idea of patriotism.

Patriotism is attributed to the Armed Forces, the Marine, the Air Force pilot, the men and women in uniform, volunteers and draftees alike, who carry out orders in the face of danger, suffering wounds, imprisonment, death, to fulfill volunteer or imposed obligation to the country in time of war. Nathan Hale, courageously going to the gallows, John Paul Jones, Andrew Jackson, U.S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Sgt. Alvin York, the millions of unsung men and women – those awarded medals of honor and Purple Hearts – these have been called the patriots and rightly so. Honor to them.

Patriotism is also more loosely used to designate those in organizations hewing to the military line and criticizing all varieties of dissenters. “My country right or wrong, right or wrong my country.”

But the definition should be wider, not only those who die in war, but also those who work for peace are patriots too. The values we prize, the very existence of human life in our world now depends more on peacemakers than it does those overaged politicians who plan the deployment of our young warriors. Jean Giraudoux, in his play “Tiger at the Gates,” has Andromache (Hector’s wife) say to Demokos, the passionate nationalist, “But which is the worse cowardice? To appear cowardly to others, and make sure of peace? Or to be cowardly in your own eyes, and lose a war?”

Demokos answers, “Cowardice is not to prefer death on every hand, rather than the death of one’s own native land.”

The warrior’s wife replies, “Everyone dies for his country. If you lived in it well and wisely and actively, you die for it too.”

How can we fail to recognize in this age where instantaneous death for most of the world is the wired button near the finger of the Chief Executive of at least two nations, each hostile to the other? Can we perceive that patriotism is keeping the peace as well as struggling valiantly in war? Such is an attitude change which would move us toward growing insistence on a world governed by law with rights guaranteed.

In the October 15th issue of The Washington Spectator, [there] appears a news item that I did not see in our newspaper. Near Amarillo, TX, is a place where nuclear weapons are put together.

This summer, Catholic Bishop ... asked the 2400 employees of Pantex [quote...]. Who is the patriot?

Historian Sir Arthur Bryant wrote of the Celtic pioneer-freeman of Britain before the Norman invasion, “He was wont to speak his mind out freely in the court of the village or shire – for among this simple people, the man who spoke the truth fearlessly was as honored as the man who fought bravely.” (MEDIEVAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND, p. 18).

I have tried to say that a genuine ethic of survival in this world where war can demolish and exterminate everything living requires:

that we must be critical of jargon which blurs the horrible realities of war;

that we must understand the forces that by definition need a constantly intensifying war machine;

that we must give increasing sanction to world peace through world law, with a strengthened U.N. as the most obvious and available instrument through which the process can move;

that before this can happen in any substantial degree, public opinion must gather much more strongly in favor of replacing war with law through international peace-keeping.

Is this dreaming the impossible dream? I don’t know. But when gloom is heavy upon me, when I consider the insensibility of so many to the horror of war and the beauty of peace, there are times I pick up a paper with some words written by a friend of mine, who for many years has dreamed that impossible dream. He too became discouraged often, but also he wrote:

“There are no ‘great men.’ Those of the ‘great men’ whom I have observed directly were just men into whom the people, the mass of people, had poured their dreams. Some of these men were big enough to shoulder their load of dreams and become ‘great’ and some have been so small that there was no discernible relation between the true man and the public image of the man.

“But whether the man was ‘great’ or a pygmy, hidden behind an image of greatness, the thing that really made for “greatness” was the great dream that people dared to dream. When millions of people dared to hold the faith that people need not starve in the midst of plenty, great new leaders appeared and the depression was licked. When millions and millions of people dared to abide by the faith that a ‘master race’ was a myth, a false god, then great leaders emerged and Hitler crawled into his bunker.

“And if we look to great men to save us, we are lost. But when you and I, many of us, each of us, stand up and say out loud, ‘War in an atomic age is suicide,’ then from somewhere as has always happened and always will happen, a great leader will appear.

“There are no great men. But great men (and women) always appear when the people dare to dream great dreams. It is the little people who dream and will not stop dreaming who are the heroic men and women.”

Liberal Principles In An Increasingly Illiberal World

September 1981
Lakeland
Port Charlotte

January 1982
Cocoa

A fault I find in myself is a tendency to be complacent when I should be alert; to take my ease in a naïve optimism when I should be uneasy about threats to liberal principles and practice; to believe that hard-won gains are forever safe, when they are not. Because I believe that my condition is not singular, but shared by many who hold to similar guiding rules, the subject is “liberal principles in an increasingly illiberal world.”

What are liberal principles? There are many ways to phrase these, and would be stated differently by others. Liberal principles do not represent an array of particular truths or an established philosophy. To use Duncan Howlett’s analysis in THE CRITICAL WAY IN RELIGION, liberal principles are critical inquiries (either positively or negatively) about issues and ideas. The goal is not to conform or adapt attitudes to pre-conceived beliefs but to examine and see if assertions be true. Claims that have an important effect need validation on the basis of history, experience, reason, and compassion. Thus the vindication of “truth” is not found etched on stone tablets toted down from a mountain or forever contained by what may or may not be said in alleged sacred scripture. Rather “truth” is ongoing, subject to modification in light of new discoveries, new insights, revised interpretations. The value basis of liberal principles is the essential worth of every human being on a planet for which, like it or not, we are stewards and ought to be caring, competent stewards.

Thus, “faith” as articles of belief handed down from someone else is not to be accepted without critical inquiry and constant examination. Arthur Koestler wrote, “Faith is a wondrous thing; it is not only capable of moving mountains, but also of making you believe a herring was a race horse.”

The old German legends of Dr. Faustus, dramatized b Goethe, Marlowe, and others, may be suggestive because like so many stories sifted through the emotions and folk-lore of the human family, there is basic wisdom. Faust, an elderly student who has been a life-long seeker for knowledge and insight into the meaning of life, becomes weary and abandons his quest for learning and understanding. He sells his soul to the devil, giving himself up to sensual pleasure. Perhaps this old folk story was saying that Faust lost his soul, not because he couldn’t find all the answers, but because he gave up the search. We humans, because we are human, are spiritual wanderers seeking ever more fulfilling answers in the midst of living choices we must make.

Also asserted in the title of this talk is that the world is increasingly illiberal. I surmise each one could make a long list. Let me illustrate with a few of our current, and to me, disturbing, events.

Our international posture toward other nations seems to be based not on mutual desire to improve the living conditions of hungry, deprived people, not on a common desire to build cooperation and human development, but rather, [we ask,] is another nation for us and against the Soviet Union? [CJW note: they do not have to be for us – just against the USSR]

President Reagan, with his captivating humor may have unintentionally created a modern parable when, commenting to a fund-raising audience that he “didn’t need to be waked up after two Libyan jets were shot down by our Navy fliers. If ours were shot down, yes, they’d wake me right away. If the other fellow is shot down, why wake me up?”

If this is symbolic of our national attitude, then we may be mighty in armaments but not in sensitivity or generosity. If we live in a world where we are oblivious to the “other fellow” being shot down, we may be in more authentic trouble than may seem obvious.

The Moral Majority and like groups spend millions to lobby for their stands, spend millions flashing images on our eyes and pronouncements on our ears to pound us with their political objectives. They are intolerant of differing views, do not allow critical examination of their ponderous proclamations, claiming that they are privy to God’s will and speak for that deity.

If you had predicted to me in 1964 that I would live to praise Senator Barry Goldwater I’d have scoffed “you’re out of your gourd.” [CJW note: almost ever issue, took a different position] This week he again struck out at Moral Majority leaders saying (quoted 9/15 Miami Herald), “I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers ... telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C,’ and ‘D.’ Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?

“And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate.”

Amen – Amen – I say to that crusty old hawk; and have written to praise him for his candor and courage. He surely will be deluged by religious reactionaries with pompous pieties, windy rhetoric, and condescending castigations.

There are other illiberal trends – more bombs for the Pentagon instead of food, legal assistance, and general concern for the deprived and disinherited. [CJW note: Doonesbury: OK to let poor suffer, “they’re used to it”]

I have mentioned issues in our nation. The same trend seems to be world-wide; I see no sainted nations.

What are guides for the liberals who believe in critical inquiry, however much we may part company on specific issues? There are varieties in the way the principles can be stated. This is my way today:

THE GOD THAT FAILED is a singularly important book published in 1950. Six well-known persons described their entry into Communism and their sad, disillusioned departures. [CJW note: DARKNESS AT NOON, YOGI AND THE COMMISSAR] Arthur Koestler, novelist and essayist, writes of the last speech he wrote before his resignation from the Communist Party in 1938. He wrote (p. 73), “The theme of the speech was the situation in Spain; it contained not a single word of criticism of the Party or of Russia. But it contained three phrases, deliberately chosen because to normal people they were platitudes, to Communists, a declaration of war. The first was, ‘No movement, party or person can claim the privilege of infallibility.’ The second was, ‘Appeasing the enemy is as foolish as persecuting the friend who pursues your own aim by a different road.’ The third was a quotation from Thomas Mann: ‘A harmful truth is better than a useful lie.’”

First: “No movement, party or person can claim the privilege of infallibility.”

Much of the bloodshed, many of the cruelties, most of the injustice that one can find wherever one looks in history can be attributed to a false claim of infallibility. Such false claims have surfaced again and again. Caesars, Popes, monarchs, Mohammed. Peter the Hermit ... claimed God’s authority in arousing mean and greedy passions for the Crusades, surely some of the most infamous pages in the history of Christian culture. Tsar Nicholas I said to the Russian people, “Do not question me! Know that I am your father; that is enough.” (Quoted by Richard Sennet).

The noted church historian Adolf Harnack wrote “study history in order to intervene in history.... To intervene in history means that we must reject the past when it reaches into the present as hindrance; it means further that we must do the right thing in the present; and it means finally that we must prepare prudently for the future.” (quoted Martin Marty, A NATION OF BEHAVERS, p. 51 ff)

A skeptical view of claimed infallibility is always a need, not less now than other times. Whether a claim to infallibility is based in Biblical literalism or a particular economics or morality or one solution to war and peace, there are no infallible authorities ... wearing the mantle of government, the uniform of the Pentagon, the robes or religion, brandishing the charts and graphs of a particular economics.

To the extent any one of us yields to infallible claims without critical examination, to that extent we lose something of the autonomous self which is the best expression of the human personality. It follows that we must grant the same rights and privileges to others, even, particularly when we disagree. Margaret Fuller, that remarkable 19th century woman, author, editor, and a key figure in the Transcendentalist movement, a liberated woman before the term was coined, wrote (and I shall not change the gender of what she wrote), “Most men, in judging another man, ask, ‘Did he live up to our standard?’ To me, it seems desirable to ask, ‘Did he live up to his own?’”

That brings into sequence the second of Koestler’s phrases, “Appeasing the enemy is as foolish as persecuting the friend who pursues your own aim by a different road.”

“Enemy” is too strong a word for those with whom we may disagree. If we pursue the method of critical inquiry, and make known our findings there will be expressions of wrath and occasionally at least unflattering labels. Yet, silence is appeasing those who believe e.g., there can be a winner in a nuclear war, who contentedly maintain there can be a better quality of life by diminishing basic necessities, who self-righteously proclaim their notions are God’s will. It is painful and at times, costly, to speak out. It’s convenient to take refuge by saying, “Well, I don’t know enough about it.” One some key issues, we may never know enough about it. But we can know enough to break silence. Clarence Darrow once commented on being a partisan, “You have at least one chance in two of being right. If you are neutral, you have no chance of being right.” (Bio – p. 293)

Then, too, there are allies. They may not be our religion or our particular party. There are coalitions standing together on particular issues – such as the RCAR where many religious organizations write to advocate pro-choice. Should I worry if among the allies there are those who follow the Methodist discipline, or the Westminster Confession, or the Gospel formula? On the issue of the Moral Majority, I’m glad for Senator Goldwater’s declaration even though I’m sure we’d be on different sides on almost any other issue. On particular issues, opponents of my opponents are allies.

Koestler also quoted Thomas Mann, “A harmful truth is better than a useful lie.” On that I had to do some thinking for there are several conventions we seem to follow. [CJW note: How are you? Looking well!] Mayor Koch of New York has acquired much publicity by asking everywhere, the passerby on the street, the trash collector, the clerk in the store, or the political followers, “How and I doing?” I wonder how many candid answers he gets.

But the matter is deeper than innocuous social conventions. For example, one of the formative competitive religions to Christianity in the early centuries was Gnosticism. In times of persecution, people were tested by the Roman [Imperium?] being required to throw incense on a pagan chafing dish and acknowledge that Caesar was Lord. Many Christians committed to their Lord refused such obeisance and went to their death as a consequence.

Basilides, a leader of the Gnostic movement, advised his followers that it was permitted to throw the incense in the dish and mutter a prayer of mental reservation. The historian wrote, “Thereby Gnosticism sealed its doom” - a religion with reservations could not persist. The history of any movement is much more complex than any single cause and effect, but the incident is instructive.

If too many hold liberal principles with reservations, or silence, doom, too, is sealed.

In conclusion, these days when often enough I am pessimistic, there are sufficient moments of optimism to believe that liberal principles and the value base of persons will prevail.

Easy? No way. Oscar Wilde commented on the socialist movement when it captured the enthusiasm and idealism of many, “the trouble with socialism is that it would take too many evenings.” (quoted by Sennet, p. 152)

Wilde speaks to us still on important issues. Effort is required and we do value our leisure and contentment. [CJW note: who wants to dedicate time?]. But what would you? Writing in the American Scholar an educator noted, “Everything in education springs from ‘Why?’” I would amend that slightly by adding “What?” “What” - that is, what are the obtainable facts? Why? What is the purpose? - can be raised many times. Letter to the editor (praise be that there are a number among us who do that). Raising the questions in our informal gatherings. Even the discouraging task of writing our legislators may have effects of which we are not presently aware.

This month we have sharing our dreams. One of mine is that the future is still open if we keep it open. Unknown source: “The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths to it are not found but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.”

Van Wyck Brooks (FLOWERING OF N.E., p. 252) tells a story that can be a parable for some of us. In the 19th century, Concord, MA, had no seaport, no trade, little water-power, no gold, lead, marble, oil. Ralph Waldo Emerson advised his fellow-townsmen to manufacture school teachers and make them the best in the world. Years later, a French scholar was sent to study American education. He discovered that wherever he went, nearly all the school teachers came from Connecticut and Massachusetts. He asked the then-famous Edward Everett Hale to explain. Hale went to Concord and asked a leading citizen how many of his townspeople, when they left school, became school teachers. “Why all of them, of course.”

I suppose that’s one of my dreams, that more of us, if not all of us, quietly or assertively, will become teachers or models of liberal principles.

Listen

June 1981
Lakeland

[Editor’s note: this sermon is available on MP3, not as given at the time, but as read into a recorder by CJW several years later. Contact editor if interested.]

Have there been times in your life when you have said, “I wish I’d listened to her or him or to my mother or to my father” ? We learn at an early age to talk, but seldom to listen.

In this period when we will not be gathering here for services for awhile, I’m suggesting to you and me that we listen to many voices. William James once wrote that the world to the new-born infant is a buzzing, blooming confusion. Then in the process of becoming human, we develop filters to screen out, to focus on one sound at a time.

Listening seems to have been a constant part of the mythology and history of religions. There is the well-known legend of the prophet Elijah (1st Kings 19-9 ff) where the prophet, trying to escape from Queen Jezebel, went into the wilderness and to a cave on Mt. Horeb. He heard strong wind, and an earthquake shook the mountain and shattered rocks, then a fire. But he could not discern the voice of Yahveh in this storm and fury. Then came the still, small voice. Out of that experience, Elijah regained courage enough to go back and continue his struggles against the corrupt rulers, Ahab and Jezebel.

Joan of Arc listened to her voices rather than the authority of the church and state. She was executed for that, but had saved her nation.

I am not saying that if we listen, we will hear supernatural voices. But we might hear natural wonders and human fears and hopes.

There is a story about two men walking around a crowded city sidewalk. Suddenly one of them remarked, “Listen to the lovely voice of that cricket.” But his friend could not hear the sound. He asked his friend how he could detect the sound of a cricket amid the roar of traffic and the sounds of people. The first man, a zoologist, had trained himself to hear the sounds of nature – yet he did not explain this. He simply dropped a half-dollar onto the sidewalk, whereupon a dozen people began to look about them. “We hear,” he said, “what we listen for.”

One of John Dewey’s famous educational maxims is that “we learn by doing.” Few people today would argue with that. But also, we learn by listening. Every one of us is aware that we tune in, tune out conversations, sometimes making a desperate effort to catch up and fill in the spaces where we tuned out. That’s human enough. But there is a need to guard against such filtering out another person’s cries for help which might be concealed in verbose or confused conversation.

Anyone who had attempted to counsel two persons who are at odds, a [married] couple, for example, is aware how much anguish is caused by failure to listen. Two people, each of whom may be hurting and confused, but their words are launched like parallel arrows – never meeting. We seem to be driven more often than not to more talking and less listening.

Norbert Weiner once wrote, “speech is a joint game between the talker and the listener against the forces of confusion.”

Listen! Do you know the John Holmes poem, “The Eleventh Commandment?” [CJW note: TRAPP p. 78]

Some of you are aware that one of the adult program series of the UUA deals with listening – how to listen. More than 30 agencies of the Federal Government have had listening training.

Some years ago, the psychologist Carl Rogers based his method of therapy on listening. In order to make sure he had listened and heard accurately, he would repeat in different words what he had heard his client say. The reality of the client knowing that he/she had been heard, understood, was in itself a healing process for troubled minds and fractured emotions.

So, Listen. As I have been thinking for a couple of weeks of the services this morning, I have tried to block out the obvious from time to time and listen to sounds I usually do not hear so well. Instead of the radio or tape player, I listened to the turbulent water in the dish-washer, the hiss of the tea-kettle, the whisper of the breeze, the thrumming sound of the blessed rain on the roof, the surly matter of distant thunder, the slippery squeak of my bare feet on wet grass, the mystic melody of lapping water on the shores of the lake, the snick of the axe clearing wood.

Perhaps you might comment, “so what.” But as I brought into primary listening those sounds which are usually background, there came home to me, keenly, the order and beauty of the universe – the world and its multi-scale notes, harmonies, and percussions.

[CJW note: Simon and Garfunkel – sang about it, “The Sound of Silence” - signal for tape]

There is healing and fellowship when we listen to one another as I*Thou (not I*it). There can be restoration of the human spirit when we respond to the sounds of earth, sea, sky, women, men, children.

One thing more: in our world of international suspicions and misunderstandings, we need to listen for the voices which are advocates of reason, announcers of fact, prophets whose priorities are humane, who sing a song of human fellowship the world over. We need to listen for those voices for there are also the war chants born of fear and greed, the dissonances of narrow self-interest.

How many times have you said, or heard, “Listen to reason.” That’s a still small voice amid the emotions sparked by the anxieties of our day. But reason is a voice that if heard might make us more aware of what is and what might be.

May I repeat: Norbert Weiner once wrote, “speech is a joint game between the talker and the listener against the forces of confusion.”

In one of the regions of Polynesia, the statues of their gods were found sitting in a circle. Each of the god-figures had a hand cupped to his ear, as though to say, “Go on, I’m listening to you.”

I do not know if the god or the gods listen or not, but we humans have the capacity to listen, and when we do, our understanding and caring for our fellow woman and man will be a joy to us and a source of strength for them.

We have the senses to hear the voices of the sky, sea, and land. There is a healing for us and perception in us too deep for adequate expression. Perhaps e.e. cummings glimpsed this poetically (and I’ll close with this) (p. 22, MODERN RELIGIOUS POEMS) ....

Addendum:

The Moldau – Smetana, from the record jacket:

A symphonic poem describes the great river from its source in two springs in a Bohemian forest, “one warm and gushing, the other cold and peaceful.” They join and run through the forest to become a gentle river flowing through the peaceful valleys. Now the river grows into a mighty torrent, while nearby the sounds of hunters and a wedding feast are heard. Now it plunges through the St. John Rapids, foaming and fierce, finally to end as the broad placid waters that flow through Prague.

Personal And Social Ethics In An Interdependent World

May 1981
Lakeland
Port Charlotte

What ought I to do? What moral principles should be reflected in my behavior? How should I deal with that explosive word, “conscience?” In one sense, this is a follow-up of my talk “Too Many Saviors.” In that talk, I suggested that we are responsible persons who do not need special saviors, whether religious, political, economic. But as some of you suggested, such a proposition is easier to assert than fulfill.

Ethics is the code of principles or statements about what my conduct, my goals, ought to be. Although I hesitate to use the word “ought” in connection with anyone but myself, usually ethics is applied also to what the conduct of others ought to be. We speak of ethical behavior, usually meaning an adherence to ... standards that have been proposed as necessary or beneficial for transactions between people, for the survival of the human venture or the proper functioning of a profession. [CJW note: or unethical behavior as a disregard of such standards]

This is an attempt to deal with ethics as impinging on us personally, as impacting on us in wider social contexts, what is conscience, and the need for transpersonal ethics in an interdependent world.

Personal ethics is a necessary part of all our lives. We observe certain rules of behavior in relationship to others in our immediate and closed circles. We do not deliberately cheat a friend; we try to achieve fair-dealing with those we know. If we contract a financial debt, we attempt to pay it and on time. Civil behavior is the standard of our conduct to those we know.

Of course there are those who violate such trust. Perhaps they acquire “guilty” feelings or have a “bad” conscience. But on the whole, the experience of most of us is that we deal ethically with our family, friends, merchants, employers, employees, and expect a like response.

But in the field of social ethics there is uncertainty, deep division of opinion and perils to the human family. Now while all personal ethics are social, I am using “social” in the sense of the wider community with which we have little or no immediate personal contact or close relationship. Social ethics, in this sense, applies to such questions as crime and punishment, issues of national importance (such as I cited two weeks ago), and the sensitive and hazardous nature of our dealings with other nations.

I assume that I shall not have to argue at length that this is an interdependent world. The Detroit automakers are alarmed about the number of automobiles Japanese manufacturers are selling in the United States. Should a social ethic deal with this? Canada is unhappy with the amount of smog and pollution which winds bring to their land from the large industrial centers in the United States, in the Midwest, particularly. What is a proper attitude, a social ethic, which will grapple with this? American fishermen complain that the huge factory ships of the Soviets and Japanese are depleting the fishing grounds which are in proximity to our shores. What is the proper ethic to understand and deal with these questions and many others? Perhaps it would be more pointed to speak of the need for a world ethic.

Can we be content to trust conscience? There are many who would say that if we obey conscience, we will do the right thing, behave ethically, whether personally or in the wider areas of social relationships, decisions, and actions. Would [that] this were so! But it is not! In the more complex areas of problems and issues there is no consensus of conscience. One illustration: before the South Sea Islands came under Western influence, “The Fiji Islander who killed his aged parents had the same good in mind as we who support our aged parents. Parent-killers and parent-protectors are at one in seeking advantage or happiness. The Fiji-Islander happened to believe that persons carry their infirmities with them into the spirit world, and so the aged parent is assured of greater happiness after death if he/she dies before becoming decrepit. Americans do not hold this belief, and so they think that the prospects of happiness are increased by caring for parents instead of killing them.” (See P. C. Sharp, ETHICS, p. 177). [CJW note: “Honor thy father and mother” - two applications]

So if “the voice of conscience is the voice of god,” then there are many gods with differing voices.

The formation of conscience is more likely attributable to upbringing than some pure force innate within us. As children, “good” is that which is praised; “bad” is that which is punished or frowned upon. Emotions, wishes, desire for approval, repetition, and verbalization in childhood plays a large role in forming what is called “conscience.” As one social scientist observed, (ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, “Morals”), “Virtue or morality consists of conformity – right conduct is not commanded because it is good – it is good because it is commanded.” In the second verse of his poem, “London,” William Blake wrote,

“In every city of every man,
In ever infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles, I hear.”

There is an old story about a U.S. Senator who visited one of his elderly constituents. The Senator talked to him about some of the great things that had come to their state during their life-time. The old man listened and then said, “Yes, they all came, and thank God, I was agin all of them.” The mind-forged manacles!

Yet, why is there change at all? At least two reasons – I believe the mores and manners implanted in us to not clearly indicate what we should do in novel situations – new situations where ingrained customs do not help. For example, all the customs of the ways of living and the ways of war can not deal effectively with atomic bombs because they have brought a new condition and terrible dimension to the price for warfare.

Secondly, the human animal (at least) possesses or has the capacity for intelligence. Other persons would include intuition in the power we have to criticize, to re-examine and revise principles, ways, attitudes, either because of something new, or a fresh look at policies that could not and should not have been maintained. The institution of human slavery is an example. [CJW note: Hamlet - “There’s nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so” - not amoral relativism; key word is “thinking” about values, consequences] Imagination, intuition, intelligence, are the forces that substantiate something John Dewey once wrote, “Morality is a continuing process, not a fixed achievement.” (MORALS AND CONDUCT)

These faculties are a heavy burden. As one observer (Yonker, p. 12) noted, “Because our basic beliefs give us psychological security of one kind or another, we tend to become dogmatic about them.” But such dogmatism may mean destruction of the fragile world in which we live.

The ethical question that will be with every one of us til our dying days, and with our children and our children’s children, is “can there be a trans-world ethic which will be embraced by enough persons to allow human life to survive with ever-increasing self-realization?”

Right here is where the ethical question has always become confused and awry. What we may be unwilling to do on a basis of personal ethic, we acquiesce in larger, more confusing situations – national and international, for example. This is one of the insights that Reinhold Niebuhr contributed in his classic study, MORAL MAN AND IMMORAL SOCIETY: (as summarized by Mason Olds, THE LIFE OF CHOICE, p. 15): “Groups and institutions behave differently from individuals; that is, the morality of groups is different from the morality of individuals. In the case of the individual, appeals to reason and a commitment to justice might work, but these appeals seldom work in the case of groups. The reason is that groups almost universally defend their economic interests. Seldom will rational persuasion change them; thus they have to be challenged....”

What then shall we think and do? Immanuel Kant proposed a moral imperative in two parts: a) So act as if you would be willing for everyone in the world to act in the same circumstances; b) act so as to treat humanity always as an end, never as a means.

There are flaws in this – many criminals and dictators would be willing for everyone in the world to act the same in the same circumstances.

The 20th century philosopher W. T. Stace (RELIGION AND THE MODERN MIND) proposed three common human purposes which are the source of universal rules of conduct:

1)Self-preservation. The survival of life. Who does not share that value?
2)Physical health.
3)Happiness - “This may also be called by such names as welfare, richness of living, self-realization, health of the soul.”

There is a corollary question, I believe, in any consideration of ethical behavior in this small, shaky world of ours: the question is not only what should we do – the prior question is “What is going on?”
We will not break the mind-forged manacles unless we know what is going on. Khoren Arisian writes in a paper, “Ethics is like the (physical) sciences, it begins with problems. Problems to be solved.” There can be no solution without knowledge; No ethics without knowledge.

For many, knowledge of the world and its tensions and problems is confined to the short eruptions of encapsulated news fitted in between commercials on the tube. I do not know of anybody who would argue that knowledge on which to base ethical decisions can be acquired in such abbreviated form. When we are uninformed, we will be unimpressed with the scope and complexity of issues, and be unable or unwilling to take a stand. Pre-packaged answers handed to us are likely to be biased and self-serving on the part of someone who has an interest to protect.

There are many who are willing victims of ignorance. Thus, it seems to me that there is an ethical obligation to secure information. To be informed. The usual sources are not enough. We, fortunately, live in a nation where a free press is one of our safeguards. Newspapers are free to print, and also free to omit. Adlai Stevenson once said, “Newspaper editors are men who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then print the chaff.” I’m sure now, Stevenson had a twinkle in his eye when he said that. But the point remains – if we wish to become informed we will use several sources and compare what is presented as fact, look for axes being ground and judge for ourselves whether what is asserted fits our sense of ethical values.

But in so doing, again, we must look at ourselves. What do we insist on knowing – finding out? Did you ever say, or hear someone say, “If it’s bad news, don’t tell me?” Abraham Maslow, the late humanistic psychologist wrote (quoted by Marilyn Thompson, THE AQUARIAN CONSPIRACY, p. 146), “fear of knowing is very deeply a fear of doing because of the responsibility inherent in knowledge.”

None of us can be completely informed on everything. But all of us can know about something important. [CJW note: Ethical assertion is a large step away from futility and frustration.] In sharing, in pooling our assessment of a situation, we can attempt to discover if the problem conflicts with our ethical standards. Then make that contradiction known to the decision makers. Can fatal blundering be avoided? One necessary condition is that the quality of our free interchange of information and discussion must improve.

Earlier I said that the world is interdependent. Another way of conveying the same idea is, “the whole world is our moral environment.” Therefore our ethical obligation is just as planetary. Easy? No way! As John Bennet said in THE RADICAL IMPERATIVE, “Living with a sense of wrongs to be righted and with full knowledge of the complexity involved in finding ways to right them is our fate and our responsibility.”

Before opening this subject for your discussion, two quotes, one from 19th century playwright and one from an historian of today.

In Ibsen’s PEER GYNT, the self-centered Peer Gynt is confronted at the end of his life (as Erich Fromm puts it) with his unrealized potentialities: [CJW note: impersonal objects, forces]

The Threadballs (on the ground)

We are thoughts;
You should have thought us;
little feet, to life
You should have brought us!
We should have risen
With glorious sound;
But here like threadballs
We are earth-bound

The Withered Leaves:

We are a watchword;
You should have used us!
Life, by your sloth,
Has been refused us.
By worms we’re eaten
All up and down,
No fruit will have us
For spreading crown.

A sighing in the air:

We are songs,
You should have sung us!
In the depths of your heart
Despair has wrung us!
We lay and waited;
You called us not
May your throat and your voice
With poison rot.

Broken Straws:

We are deeds
You have left undone
Strangled by doubt
Spoiled ere begun.
At the Judgment day
We shall be there
To tell our tale;
How will you fare?

Barbara Ward [CJW note: died two weeks ago] (quoted by Washington Spectator) wrote a couple of years ago in a Canadian newspaper:

“I can conceive of a religious ethic that regards it as essential to share. That might mean clean water for the world; it would certainly mean an agricultural policy for the world. We must stop our incredible waste....

“We must never contaminate the cradle of life.... What’s happened is that the planet is beginning to say, ‘Don’t abuse me. I’m not unlimited. I’m fragile. I must be cared for. I must be loved,’ which in a sense is a very religious approach, and the men of science are beginning to believe it.”

And one could add, more and more women and men, scientists, statesmen, corporate managers, and all the persons like you and me, “better believe it.”

The Old Time Religion – It’s Not Good Enough For Me

May 1981
Port Charlotte

Dissatisfaction with one’s religion may be a sign of healthy discontent. Some years ago, a Methodist bishop, speaking before a large conference of his denomination, said in reference to the old gospel song [“Old Time Religion,”] “The old time religion – it’s not good enough for me.” Then he drew on the Judeo-Christian tradition for illustrations. The old time religion wasn’t good enough for Abraham; he turned his face toward a new land and his heart toward a new god. The old time religion wasn’t good enough for Moses. He overturned the golden calf, and as lawgiver, led his people to new personal and social disciplines. The old time religion wasn’t good enough for Amos, Hosea, Jeremiah, and Isaiah. Their prophetic voices called upon the people to mend their ways, to root out the weeds from some of their religious practices. The old time religion wasn’t good enough for Jesus. He called upon the people to repent, to seek the kingdom of God and practice a more vital application of their religion. The old time religion wasn’t good enough for Luther, Calvin, John Hus, Savonarola, or Francis of Assisi.

In our own tradition, the old time religion wasn’t good enough for John Murray, Hosea Ballou, Channing, Emerson, Parker. Their minds and hearts revolted against the narrow, cruel doctrines of Calvinistic theology. They proclaimed and sparked the Universalist and Unitarian movements.

We seem to be living in a period of history in which more than usual revolutionary change is occurring And like all those who found the old time religion wasn’t good enough for them, we must find ideals to live by and behavior coherent with ideals.

I believe it basic to our Unitarian Universalist religion that is is one which both permits and encourages us to grow. Freedom is basic to our fellowship and we have both the power and the opportunity to create new beacons to guide our way when we find that the old time religion isn’t good enough for us.

Pioneer Daniel Boone always turned his face toward new frontiers. It is said that once when the nearest neighbor came to be only nine miles away, Boone moved on. He said that he couldn’t stand crowds and had to have elbow room. Remarking on this, someone once said to me that for many Universalists and Unitarians the sermons of William Ellery Channing or Hosea Ballou mark the extreme frontier of liberal thought. Somewhere in the book of the Exodus, when the children of Israel were making their long trek from the land of bondage to the land of freedom, they stopped many days at a certain mountain. Then the voice of Yahveh came to them saying, “Ye have compassed this mountain long enough. Advance.”

There are many people who will never feel the need of a religion that measures up to the new days and its needs. The old time religion is good enough for them. Others feel differently. For them, the old religions with their outworn myths and dogmatic absurdities just won’t do any more. Something in the neighborhood of 30% to 35% of the American people have no formal religious ties with any church or synagogue. Such certainly is their right and privilege. But there are those of us also, who find in religious fellowship the joy of group celebration and joint effort even though we do not carry unnecessary baggage of ideas and practices that have had their day and served their purpose.

Khalil Gibran, the Syrian poet, asked, “who can separate his faith from his actions? Or his belief from his occupation?”

If Unitarian Universalism is authentic for us inwardly and outwardly, it will be woven into all our actions, be the undergirding of our lives, whether in retirement, or whether we may be carpenters, engineers, homemakers, or whatever.

Are there guide lines without dogmatics? Pioneer educator Dr. Kilpatrick, some years ago, suggested humankind’s greatest achievements. The greatest achievements he suggested may be close to the mark. What would you term as the three greatest things women and men have accomplished in their millions of years on earth?

The first of these great achievements in Dr. Kilpatrick’s classification is modern science. Modern science has changed our world almost unbelievably in the last hundred and fifty years. What we call modern science has brought about more change in this period than all the fifty or more centuries of written history. Those who sing of the “old time religion” do not seem to recognize this.

There are certain qualities of mind and method toward all things which characterize the scientific approach to problems and mysteries. These qualities might be described (following, Bernet, COLLEGE AND LIFE, p. 175):

Natural curiosity, impartiality, breadth of view, persistence and industry in exploring sources of new truth, a fruitful skepticism, humility and tolerance, fearlessness as to what may be discovered and an open mind for new discoveries that may either confirm or revise existing theories.

Many years ago Dr. Andrew White of Cornell wrote his comprehensive study of THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE WITH THEOLOGY. In that notable study, the author demonstrated that in nearly ever field of science in which new truths have been discovered about the universe in which we live, have discovered new ways to ease the suffering of the sick, new ways to make living more comfortable and happy, organized religion has been an obstacle in the path to the adoption of new truths, new discoveries, new healing.

Galileo’s discovery that our earth revolved around the sun and not the sun around the earth brought him to the hands of the torturers of the church who forced him to recant under pain. That is an old and terrible example. Today there is reflection of that attitude, although, so far, no torture in the hot-tempered opposition to the teaching of evolution in scientific curricula.

Yet, any dispassionate view of history discloses the fact that, properly interpreted, the new discoveries and methods do not undermine religious understanding. The new discoveries tell a little more about the power and energy that seem infinite in our universe.

A story which may seem trivial may help illustrate. Years ago, the National Geographic magazine told about one of the reasons that humankind may be grateful to Rockport, Maine, because it is the birthplace of one of the unique benefactors of persons. “Capt. Hanson Crockett Gregory, the man who invented the hole in the doughnut. A bronze plaque on Gregory’s old home records the deed. According to one version of the story, as a boy of 16, more than 125 years ago, Gregory watched his mother cook fried cakes, some of which had soggy, indigestible centers. Gregory suggested she cut a hole in them. The world knows the result. Capt. Gregory was decorated by Queen Isabella for saving the lives of shipwrecked Spanish sailors. There is no record of how many lives he saved by punching holes in fried cakes.”

Does that typical Maine story illustrate something of the role that science can play in a religion that makes sense and is fit for our time? It is science that gives us the clue to getting rid of the indigestible part of religion. Does not the modern discovery of how the mind affects the body, how the emotions can [weaken] our physical self give us a clue into many of the so-called miracles of Jesus? What was indigestible suddenly becomes a saving force because of the open mind and tolerant approach demonstrated by science at its best.

The Talmud says, “Greater is the miracle that occurs when a sick person escapes from perilous disease than that which happened when Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah escaped from the fiery furnace; the torturous manner in which a family in distress manages to eke out an existence is as great a miracle as the parting of the Red Sea for the Israelites.”

Science alone is not enough. The second of humankind’s great achievements is the power of critical thinking.

As you observe an intricate telephone system, a humming factory, a hospital where the talents of trained men and women are put to the use of the needy, notice the astonishing capacity and potential of the computer revolution, can you think of life today without high intelligence?

John Erskine, famous professor of literature of another generation at Columbia, wrote a witty and challenging essay on the need to combine intelligence with the other desirable qualities of life. He used as a text, Kingsley’s lines, “Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever.”

And he went on to criticize a rather common attitude in our culture that somehow there was a division between goodness and intelligence. In his words, “stupidity is regarded as a first cousin to moral conduct, and cleverness the first step into mischief; that reason and God are not on good terms with each other; that the mind and heart are rival buckets in the well of truth, inexorably balanced – full mind, starved heart – stout heart, weak head.”

Professor Erskine illustrated his thesis by demonstrating that Shakespeare’s highly intelligent characters were usually villains or helpless victims of fate. Cunning Richard and shrewd Iago seem to demonstrate that thinking is sometimes apart from goodness. “The prizes of life,” Prof. Erskine went on, “go to such men as Bassanio or Orsino, men of good conduct and sound character, but not particularly intelligent.”

The application of intelligence to religion is just as needed as anywhere else. Can there be understanding without intelligence? Can there be a religion fit for our times unless it is a thoughtful religion? Should not religion make sense?

To be sure, thinking sometimes brings discomfort and discontent. Whitehead said that adventure is the key to civilization, and that the highest point of the adventure is the discontent with things as they are and men and women set their minds to work to try to make things better. Thinking is at times a painful experience, but it is the price to be paid.

That is one of the reasons why it is difficult to be liberal in religion. It is not easy to be a Unitarian Universalist. You are not expected to park your mind outside the Fellowship with your car.

There is one more of humankind’s greatest achievements. Without this, science can be a curse and intelligence the door-handle to tyranny. The third achievement is the recognition of the worth of the human personality. Without that principle pre-eminent, Unitarian Universalism or any other religion or code is a danger.

The tyrant can employ scientists and intelligence can be the tool of evil. The free individual is a prime condition and the best vision of humankind thus far. John Dewey thought that this was the greatest contribution of the Protestant Reformation. He wrote, “The greatest influence of Protestantism was ... in developing the idea of the personality of every human being as an end in herself/himself.”

Seneca, the famous orator of ancient Rome, told the story of the sculptor Parrhasus. Parrhasus was an intelligent, highly skilled sculptor with chisel and hammer. A scientist of sculptured stone. So eager was Parrhasus to portray a dying warrior true to life that he had his model put to death so that he could observe the actual dying agonies and accurately sculpt the scene in stone.

Science, intelligence, and skill are not enough. Otherwise we can be seduced like that ancient sculptor into thinking that human beings can be willfully sacrificed for science or art or politics.

Women and men have a long way to go in accepting this achievement. Personality in too many places is not sacred.

If one seeks to interpret the American experience (I do not speak of other cultures because of a lack of immersion in them) ... one must inevitably deal with the points cited.

Scientific attitude – curiosity – exploration of new frontiers, not only in the intellectual setting of lab or library, but also in the opening of the continent, the migrations westward, the industrial revolution, the electronic revolution.

Critical thinking – analysis of propositions, the possible consequences of innovation, the development of free public education and the huge expansion of American universities, not only in size but also in curriculum innovations.

Worth of persons: in spite of many negative attitudes and cruel events, this too is reflected in our American experience, although much [more] slowly: the end of human slavery, minimum wage, health care even for those who cannot pay, publicly financed housing for the poor, unemployment insurance, social security. There are still large gaps to be filled.

The American experience has been a series of recognitions that the old ways were not good enough. Therefore there was change.

But there [are] millions who have not shared the American experience described. The geographical frontiers have evaporated, educational skills are not universal, the worth of all persons is not fully recognized. The experience for many has been that of disinheritance.

The past is not good enough. It can be made better. That is the sharp recognition whose keenness we must feel.

Too Many Saviors

April 26, 1981
Port Charlotte

May 3, 1981
Lakeland

How can our tense world, throbbing with anxiety and bristling with antagonism have too many saviors? We need all the help we can get! Among the reasons for the Unitarian Universalist rejection of the idea of salvation by one savior’s unique sacrifice are (1) the fundamental injustice of one innocent person suffering the punishment due the many guilty, and (2) the justice in the idea that we are and rightly should be responsible for our own salvation. Rejecting, then, the authority of a revealed redemptive scheme, in whose hands shall we place authority? This is the persisting problem that underlies every historical crisis – the conquests of Alexander, the Roman candle-like flare and dimming of Napoleon, the Battle of Britain, the power of the dictators, to the vexing and distressing crises of this hour – El Salvador, the law of the sea treaty, how should we relate to Cuba and the Soviet Union. Shall we believe those who tell us that the nation’s survival depends on cutting taxes and social programs and fattening the Pentagon’s already obese dimensions? I submit to you that we have more, not fewer, reasons to wrestle with the continuing crisis of: whom shall we trust? Who speaks for the citizens? Where is the truth? What shall we do?

There are ancient illustrations and current warnings about the nature of authority and there is something vulnerable about the human condition for many which welcomes the authority who tells us what to do and how to think.

One of the two Bible legends about the anointing of Saul as the first king of the Israelites tells how Samuel, the last of the judges, a prophet, was approached by the tribal chieftains who asked that Samuel appoint a king to rule them. The prophet Samuel did not approve, because he believed that Jahveh was the only king the tribes should have. After prayer and thought, Samuel warned the tribal leaders, “Here are the methods of the king who shall reign over you; your sons he will take and place them in his war chariots and among his horsemen.” Not only would military service be required, but also, Samuel warned them that a king would conscript their sons and daughters for palace duties, a tenth of the people’s income would be confiscated and all of them would be slaves.

Then the Moffatt translation goes on (1st Samuel 8/19 ff): “However the people would not listen to the voice of Samuel. ‘No,’ they said, ‘we must have a king over us, to be like all the other nations, that our king may rule and march in front of us and fight our battles.’”

Saul was one savior too many for these people. There is something vulnerable about our individual moral stamina which makes us all too willing to say, “rule over us,” even though the price may be loss of freedom, the erosion of justice, and the choking-off of mercy.

The problem of freedom and authority is far more momentous than an oversimplified recital of a scriptural legend. The same psychological pressures to which those Israelites yielded are compressing us today, with the menacing addition, in words written by the late Dr. Albert Schweitzer, “The organized political social, and religious associations of our day are at work to induce individual man/woman not to arrive at conclusions by their own thinking, but to take as their own such convictions as are kept ready-made for them.”

George Orwell, in his classic prophecy of totalitarianism, 1984, wrote brilliantly, and forebodingly, of the horror of a political system which controls not only action but thought; where the dictator is shrewdly and repulsively named, “Big Brother.” Orwell’s prophecy seems far more likely to come true than we are willing to admit. There are many saviors professing to provide salvation for us if we will only plead, “rule over us, tell us how to think.”

The Soviet Union is illuminated for us constantly as a power which would rule the world. Our foreign policy and our mammoth expenses for war weapons are based on that assumption, an assumption we are seldom permitted to forget. It should be a sobering discipline however, that for many nations, the U.S. with its powerful influences of money, overseas military bases, nuclear weaponry, international trade, huge investment in other countries, is looked upon by some other nations as one savior too many.

But there are other dangers as well. The so-called Moral Majority is making its influence felt. The Moral Majority wants to make us think and behave according to its agendas; and masks that reach for authority behind a slogan that they are doing God’s will. There are others, who would dilute the disciplines of science by imposing religious myth as an equally valid scientific explanation of creation. [CJW note: resolution] I wonder how those who advocate that one variety of special creationism would respond to the suggestion made by a farmer in Goodland, Kansas, a humanist for more than a half-century, than an additional chapter be inserted in Genesis which would set forth the theory of evolution to account for the origin and change of species? [CJW note: Fair? Would it not?]

Another illustration of more saviors than we need is the Helms/Hyde proposal which would make an end run around Supreme Court decisions on the right of a woman to choose abortion. S 158, HR 900, would legislate that “actual human life exists from conception.” Completely ignoring the fact that there is absolutely no scientific, theological, or moral consensus as to when HUMAN life begins, the proponents, Jesse Helms and Henry Hyde, maintain “the political department most appropriate to decide when life begins is Congress.” Such a Congress, if it passed these freedom-nullifying bills, is one too many saviors for us.

The constant appearance of organizations and individuals who profess great intentions, but willingly indulge in wrong ways to accomplish the goals, are not new. The tribal sheiks who promoted a king in ancient Israel are legendary – but the Moral Majority, the Ku Klux Klan, the Helms and Hydes are but reminders of the constant struggle that is needed. There are those among us who remember the House Anti-American Activities Committee, McCarthyism, the John Birch Society. These new anti-freedom efforts provides substance to the proposition that the struggle to maintain, as well as to establish freedom and justice, never ends.

Do you know the little story of the small boy who asked, “Father, what is a demagogue?” “A demagogue, my son, is a man who can rock the boat himself and persuade everybody else that there is a terrible storm at sea.” [CJW note: source?]

A French sociologist, Gustave LeBon, studied the behavior of crowds during the days of the French Revolution. He concluded that the crowd is given to action, not thought, and acts by barbarian instinct. The clever leader, the Hitler type, manipulates the crowd psychologically and the crowd responds as a mob, not as participating individuals in group interchange of shared ideas and contrasting views.

There are too many self-appointed saviors who try to scare us interplaying that most dangerous game – that the end justifies the means. The late Sir Charles P. Snow, astute scientist and writer, observed, “When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find far more, and far more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than ever have been committed in the name of rebellion. If you doubt that, read William Shirer’s RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH. The German officer corps were brought up in the most rigorous code of obedience. To themselves, no more honorable and God-fearing body of men could conceivably exist. Yet in the name of obedience they were party to, and assisted in, the most wicked large-scale actions in the history of the world.”

In the Hindu scripture, the Sanskrit Panchatantra, there is a fable which speaks to our tendency to acquiesce to saviors we do not need. Three magicians starting out to show the world the greatness of their powers, allowed a rather simple fellow to accompany them. Coming upon a pile of bones, they decided to show the simpleton their powers. The first magician said, “I can cause these bones to form a skeleton.” He spoke a magic word and the bones were assembled. The second magician announces, “I can clothe this skeleton with flesh.” The miracle happens. The third magician proclaims, “I can endow this with life.”

The simple man interrupts. “Don’t you realize that this is a tiger?” The wise men pay no attention to him – this is not relevant to the demonstration of their powers. The simple man then climbs a tree. The tiger is brought to life and devours the three magicians. The tiger wanders off, sated. The simple man descends the tree and goes home. (Told by Joseph Wood Krutch, in HUMAN NATURE AND THE HUMAN CONDITION.)

Too many saviors of whatever authoritarian persuasion, who sacrifice means to end, right or left, if we say to them “rule over us,” will bring the tiger to life and we will be devoured. We need, like the simple one, to ask again and again, “Don’t you realize this is a tiger?”

The central struggle in the world is for the minds of men and women. All other struggles are of subordinate importance. Those who have studied human beings under stress remind us that we are in most danger when we permit ourselves to become confused and bewildered under the strain of situations which seem too intricate for our understanding, too vast for constructive individual judgment. When overwhelmed, we may willingly accept the savior no matter if his beliefs (or propaganda and stifling legislation) do violence to our principles.

Of particular relevance to members of a religion, Unitarian Universalism, which asserts a base of rational thought by a free people, is whether we can be trusted to chart our own future. There is a foundation in our form of government and our liberal religion which assumes that what I believe to be true, I cannot impose on you except by persuasion. What you think absolute, I have a right to believe is false or relative. There are too many saviors who would impose THEIR salvation on us – who pressure us to say, “rule over us,” but when we concede freedom by deferring either to the far left or far right, we have lost the battle for the minds of people. Christopher Fry, in his play, THE DARK IS LIGHT ENOUGH, said this lyrically when the Countess pleads with the Colonel:

“So be certain, whatever the temptation
No man is made a slave by you.
Then to the number who die
And far beyond that number infinitely,
Surely you will show
One man over another has no Kingdom.”

But let there be no doubt about it, the struggle starts [with] ourselves. We are not a different species from the tribes who prostrated themselves before Saul.

We dislike being whirled into the centers of controversy. Who is bold enough to deny that he/she is always tempted to play the role of blameless bystander, to cluck-cluck with alarm, while managing never to become seriously involved? To appropriate the title of a detective story of some years back, more often, however, the bystander is the “guilty bystander.”

Although some wanted George Washington to become king, our Founders did not say to Washington, “Rule over us.” He scorned that possibility. Our country had as a basic premise that (men, not women?) were born to be free and “freedom was the right to choose.”

Unitarian Universalists have a special obligation. We make hardly a ripple in the ocean of religious denominations. Yet the distinctiveness we claim is the free rational mind and that the correct religious duty is service to human need. How then can we avoid the issues that represent threats to the free mind and danger to the human personality?

At the rise of Philip of Macedon in ancient Greece, Demosthenes addressed his fellow Athenians: “The worst feature of the past is our best hope for the future. What then is that feature? It is that your affairs go wrong because you neglect every duty, great or small; since, surely, if they were in this plight in spite of your doing all that was required, there would not be even a hope for improvement. But in fact it is your indifference and carelessness that Philip conquered; your city he has not conquered. Nor have you been defeated – No! You have not even made a move.”

Today, as in ancient Greece, apathy prevails among much of the citizenry. Overwhelmed by the difficulties of alternatives, subdued by the complexity of issues, the apathetic are the prime prospect for the “saviors” who would chart authoritarian ways. There would be many who would sigh with relief to avoid difficult choices and hard ways of freedom. [CJW note: Fromm: ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM] But such a savior is one too many, whoever he or they may be.

One wise historian [CJW note: Hugh Thomas] wrote, “The will of a few to dominate and the desires of many to be dominated meet in a happy engagement to fill the void caused by the absence of a social culture based on ideas.”

The best of our country has been based on ideas, ideas freely, openly expressed for which strong, sacrificial efforts have been made to make them real. As Stephen Vincent Benet wrote in his poem, “Nightmare at Noon,”

“There are certain words,
Our own and others, we’re use to – words we’ve used,
Heard, had to recite, forgotten….
Liberty, equality, fraternity.
To none will we sell, refuse or deny, right or justice.
We hold these truths to be self-evident.
I am merely saying – what if these words pass?
What if they pass and are gone and are no more,
Eviscerated, blotted out of the world? …
They were bought with belief and passion, at great cost.
They were bought with the bitter and anonymous blood
Of farmers, teachers, shoemakers and fools
Who broke the old rule and the pride of kings ….
It took a long time to buy these words.
It took a long time to buy them, and much pain.”

Great Realities That Go Astray – Atonement

Palm Sunday (April 12), 1981
Port Charlotte

re-written from:
April 11, 1954
Bridgeport

The hosannas sounded then. They sound today. Amid the long days of Lenten solemnity, Palm Sunday erupts in a moment of triumph.

In the Christian scheme of salvation, the Palm Sunday pageant begins the week of climax with a joyous overture to a drama of courage, fellowship, betrayal, rejection, and defeat. The curtain falls – but the curtain rises on Easter Sunday, with the believers ecstatic with the assurance that their Lord has risen and that life is life everlasting.

The Christian worship of centuries has made the Palm Sunday procession a central part of the way God fulfills a divine plan. The predictions of the children of Israel, made hundreds of years before, are believed to have been fulfilled. This is not an ordinary victory pageant or a hero’s parade – this is God, who has foreordained these moments from the beginning of the world. In the atoning death on the cross, God, and in his incarnation as the Christ, the second person of the Trinity, saves all humankind from the sin of [the] Fall. So goes the plan of Christian theology.

As we see the religious advertising, look to the TV and radio evangelists, feel the emotion that seems to be at the core of the vast majority of Christian groups, we become aware that this doctrine of human salvation through Christ’s atonement is the central certainty of the Christian plan of salvation. “And I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all men unto me.” Thus says the gospel writer speaking for Jesus.

Most Christians respond with a surge of enthusiasm as well as increased sense of their own guilt when they are reminded in forceful and picturesque terms that in Christ Jesus, very God of very God, is the only salvation for sinful men and women (that is, for those who believe in him).

Even though recognizing that this doctrine of the suffering servant who redeems every believer pulls at the heartstrings, nevertheless the scheme of the only human salvation through the atoning death of Jesus Christ is a reality that has gone astray. The scheme seems simple on the surface: [mankind] is depraved, the inheritors of the original sin of Adam. Because of this depravity, men and women are incapable of saving themselves, so God becomes man and saves his believers.

There is, first of all, the confusion that exists in the minds of the believing Christians as to just what this doctrine means. Few will actually discuss the hows and whys of this doctrine, central to orthodox Christianity. The truth is, there is no doctrine about which those who believed it differ more than the explanation of the atonement of Jesus.

In the early centuries of the Christian church, the church fathers generally held that by Adam’s sin, and by our own, all humankind was lost to the Devil. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, ransomed men and women from the Devil through the atoning death on the cross. But even though ransomed to the Devil for all humankind, the Devil could not hold him because God was sinless. The Devil was tricked and Jesus arose from the dead.

But this doctrine began to bother some thinking persons. It was a nagging theological concept to believe that there was a being, the Devil, almost as powerful, if not as powerful, as God himself. Such a conclusion amounted to believing that there was more than one God. It was just as disturbing to think that God, in cheating the Devil of his ransom, was guilty of the type of sharp practice for which a merchant would be [written up] by the Better Business Bureau.

Then along in the 11th century, Anselm, a noted scholar, formulated a new view which attempted to get around these difficulties. Anselm said that man owed a perfect obedience to God. But because the human was by nature sinful, because he was of Adam’s seed, he/she was incapable of perfect obedience. Therefore, men and women could not pay their just debt of perfect obedience to God. So God, in his yearning and love for the human family, became man and ... Jesus was able by his death on the cross to pay the debt of perfect obedience. “Not my will, but thine be done.... Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

This was accepted by many. It is still the basic atonement theory for some schools of thought. But again, when we look at this calmly, there are many objections. To each proposition, the question “why?” can be asked without a satisfactory answer. If God were all-powerful, every proposition of Anselm’s scheme seems a useless sort of thing, other than God was playing an amusing game with himself.

Other theories have made appearance. You would not want me to take time to speak of them at length. There was the so-called criminal law theory that god by his nature was forced to punish men and women for depravity and sinfulness. But God in Christ became a willing substitute and accepted the punishment which was deserved. Therefore there was no further claim on any sinner who became a believer.

But all of these and other various schemes of supernatural atonement have at least three serious flaws. First of all, they attribute to God a poorer character than we look for in a good person. A human being of honor does not kill the innocent so that the guilty may escape their just punishment. Neither does a just person exact punishment against the son for moral wrong committed by the parent. Are any of these complex, not to say, primitive ideas about the atoning death of Jesus any real credit to a god many think of as love? Sir Oliver Lodge, speaking years ago of an old theory of atonement, said, “none but a cur will ask for the punishment due him to fall on someone else, nor rejoice if told it had already so ‘fallen.’” (HIBBERT JOURNAL, Jan. 1914) For God to decree that Jesus must bear the punishment for my sins or your is just morally irresponsible.

The second flaw in these supernatural theories of the atoning death of Jesus is that the nature and character of [mankind] is misrepresented. Our generation needs no particular reminders that men and women are not perfect. They are guilty of enormous errors and evils. Certain gross burdens that humanity bears like war, treachery, and intolerance seem to be handed generation to generation. Yet to infer from such evidence that men and women are depraved by nature and incapable of achieving salvation is to conclude more than facts warrant. Children are born without moral stain. They are born with the urge to struggle for food and comfort; they are born with the urge to be loved and to love; they are born with physical, genetic inheritance that can be molded or led in many ways. But babies are not squirming bundles of original sin.

If the human family’s long history of misdeeds and the long list of persons who have bent toward evil is evidence for human depravity, what about the much longer list of good people – the “millions who humble and nameless the straight hard pathway trod?” There are more good people than bad people in every generation. Were that not so, human society could not have continued. So if it may be submitted that humanity’s many misdeeds are evidence for depravity, may it not also be submitted that the greater score of goodness is evidence for the essential worth and potentiality of the human personality?

The third mistake in all these miraculous atonement ideas is that they make all meaning to Jesus’ life conditional on three ideas: belief in his alleged miraculous birth, his crucifixion, and his alleged physical resurrection. It makes salvation dependent on belief in these three events. Only one of these events, the crucifixion, has probable historical truth. This third mistake is perhaps the most serious problem, because it separated Jesus’ death from his life. Jesus’ death is important to us only because of the kind of life he lived. It is doubtful Jesus ever said much about death. He said a great deal about life. “Which one of these sons did the will of his father? Go then and do likewise.” He healed the sick, he did not say you will be healed because of my atoning death which is to come. Is it not our verified experience in all the tide of events that make up our lives that it is not alone what we believe, but what we do, that changes things[?]

We know that people who accept the miraculous supernatural salvation schemes are not necessarily better for it. Many times persons will keep their religion in a tight compartment and never permit any religious principles to leak out and change the course of their conduct for the better. The so-called believer may be no more trustworthy in the everyday affairs of life than the person who makes no loud claims for his “saved” condition.

But even though these difficulties exist with the various atonement issues, most of us respond with the emotional feeling of considerable depth to this holy week. We feel the impact of the triumphal march into Jerusalem, we long to participate in the feeling of splendid fellowship that marked the last supper, the gloom and defeat of the cross of execution touch our hearts with sorrow, and the new life, the triumph of Easter cause Christians to affirm, “alleluia.”

We thrill at the events in Passion Week even though we are aware of the origin of the ceremonies. Our historic Christian worship is a blend of the Jewish worship and custom and the worship practices and customs of the Grecian-Roman-Asian world. The blending took many centuries. The Yom Kippur [CJW note: at a different time of y] was and is a Day of Atonement for the Jewish people. The Greco-Roman world worshiped many dying-rising savior gods. They observed the vegetable and plant life of the world of dying in the [season of] Fall. They were dependent upon this vegetation. When spring came and new shoots came through the ground, the people rejoiced. The god of growing things was born again. The[y had] vegetation gods, and they had various names for various times and lands: Osiris, Attis, Adonis, is to name but a few. The early Christian missionaries blended the Jewish and Pagan festivals into the new Christian religion. It was the melting pot brewing, just as the melting pot in America has blended many peoples and their customs.

But back of the social origins of the spring festivals of dying atonement and living resurrection, there is a reality. When we lose touch with this reality we may lose touch with what is both wonder-full and poignant in the affairs of human beings.

This is the reality – that whenever persons are made redeemed [CJW note: made better], whenever good is made to flower from evil, whenever persons are made whole and more honorable, there is always suffering and sacrifice by those who are the keepers of the dream. Always when there are human beings who have sought to free persons from the chains of ignorance, or the slavery of tyranny, or the dungeon of low ideals, or the post-house of selfishness – these saviors of humankind have always generated conflict, hatred, and bloodshed. The persons who seeks to bring light of knowledge and to extend the hand of justice – it is he or she who is crowned with thorns and lynched on the Calvarys of the world.

John Murray Atwood always emphasized that “anyone who undertakes to teach or advocate new truth, running counter to traditional doctrine, always encounters opposition. If he/she persists and is faithful, opposition becomes bitter; first there are attempted bribes, then threats, and if he/she still persists the outcome may be death.”

It has always been so. We may predict with some assurance that it will always be so. Four hundred and fifty years before Christ there lived in Athens a poor, homely, fat man. He was a teacher and he tried to impart to his students the inquiring mind. He taught them to ask questions. He asked questions. He questioned the tyrants of his day who demanded complete and unquestioning loyalty. And so he was silenced: he was ordered to die in the fashion of his time. So Socrates died with creeping paralysis caused by the cup of hemlock. Yet his sacrifice, his atonement, if you please, is one of the reasons why our civilization has had the great advantage of the gains that were achieved by minds that were free.

Look at the saviors of humankind – the have suffered for you and for me. They have atoned for us. When the Swiss confederation was seeking its political independence, in a day when political independence was unknown, they had much to overcome. The armies of the Holy Roman Empire were well-armed and well-trained. The Swiss had few arms and smaller armies. In one battle the Swiss were armed only with axes and they marched toward enemies who came towards them armed with long lances. It would seem that the long lances would cause death and defeat before the brave Swiss could get close enough to struggle hand to hand. Then one of the Swiss patriots suddenly dashed forward and gathered into his one body a number of the lances. The line was breached, the Swiss were able to close in, and win this battle for their freedom. Arnold von Winkelried was a savior for his nation. In his death, his countrymen were freed. He atoned.

So with Jesus. He came into the city whose welcoming cheers were to turn to shouts of “crucify him.” He was the same man, whether applauded or stoned. He was faithful to the vision he saw and tried to make it real by his personal example and his teachings. Throughout the bitterness of the mockery that was called a trial, then along the painful way to the cross, he did not forget his family, his friends, his ideals, or his God. His was the nobility of all the faithful who perform sacrifice that humanity may be healthier, better, and live in a more just society. This was sacrifice of a man who remained true to the best. By his sacrifice, he like another later savior, Lincoln, “belongs to the ages.”

How much more moving is this real atonement of human beings to whom life is sweet. There is no sorrow or tragedy if an all-powerful God merely comes to Earth and Judas, Peter, and Pilate are but puppets being yanked hither and yon playing their pre-determined roles. The old idea just does not identify God closely enough with the moral struggle.

The reality for us is in seeing that the atonement, whether by Jesus or any of the other great friends of mankind, is actually a disclosure of unconditional caring working in and through human efforts.

The reality of the atonement is that suffering has moral power, when a great cause demands suffering.

[CJW note: King: “unmerited suffering is redemptive.”]

We live in an age which is making what may be a great and tragic mistake. So many slide into the rut of thinking that religion is for the purpose of curing little pains, of making people feel self-satisfied and comfortable. The reality of the atonement is that the cross is not merely an exciting word for people who let religion get to their emotions. [CJW note: pre-empted meaning] The cross is the symbol of the inescapable way that the world is made better by the willing devotion, faithfulness, trust, and sacrifice of humankind’s known and nameless saviors. The reality for them is that they become aware of what atonement really is – at-one-ment with the moral fiber of the universe, at-one-ment with the God they worship, or at-one-ment with the difficult but necessary goals of justice, mercy, and love.