Near the end of each calendar year, at the turn of the new, journalism outlets routinely publish their annual lists of “Top Ten” news stories--including the top 10 religion stories in the news.
We are now 4 weeks into the new year. We are also into what is already beginning to feel like an eternal presidential primary cycle. So it seems worth noting that among the top religion in the news stories is one that is not going away any time soon: the story of Faith and Politics. (Before I go any further, I want to reassure you that I am not going to be speaking about or endorsing particular candidates, presidents or parties; I will not in any way be threatening our non-profit status—today.)
After the last presidential campaign, progressive evangelical minister Jim Wallis, wrote a book I’ve mentioned before: God’s Politics, Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It. (I just love that title…) In it he urged people of faith to reclaim a public religious voice, to find common ground on which to create real solutions to challenging problems, not greater divides around cultural hot button issues. Joining other progressive religionists, Wallis called for what I would term a “proper” expression of faith in the public square: to call us to a shared vision of government that works to do collectively what individuals cannot do alone.
Former NY State Governor Mario Cuomo distinguished that this vision of government is grounded not in a sectarian law of God or the Bible, but on “…natural law principles.” (He explains): “These two most basic principles are shared by most if not all of our nation’s religions, whether they include God or not. Look at the earliest of our monotheistic religions, Judaism. Two of Judaism’s basic principles, as I understand it, are tzedakkah and tikkun olam. Tzedakkah is the obligation of righteousness and common sense that binds all human beings to treat one another charitably and with respect and dignity. Of course. What else would you conclude if you’re on a desert island, and you saw other like kinds, and you knew you had to protect yourself against the beasts, and you knew that you had to raise children, and you knew that you had to produce crops so that you could eat? You would say that we should treat one another with respect. You wouldn’t need a whole lot of influence from on high or anywhere else to conclude that.
And the second principle (continues Cuomo) is tikkun olam, the principle that says, now having accepted the notion that we should treat one another with respect and dignity, we come together as human beings in comity [kamite] and cooperation to repair and improve the world around us.”
Insofar as I share this hope that people of faith could raise their voices for the common good rather than a greater divide, I was impressed by the strength of Wallis’ influence. Last June, CNN’s Wolfe Blitzer and Soledad O’Brien hosted a televised program featuring a panel of religious practitioners posing questions to the wide field of presidential primary contestants on the subject of their personal faith. Jim Wallis was one of the interviewers, and his organization, Sojourners, was acknowledged as one of the sponsors of the forum.
My first reaction was: Great! This campaign cycle, the religious right will not be able to dominate the political conversation on matters of concern to people of faith and the common good. Finally, a major media outlet – CNN--is acknowledging that we are not so much a country divided into red and blue as we are purple: a great mix of ideas, beliefs and values that are held more in common than we are often led to believe.
I say this of course, with more hope and optimism than is reasonable, I’m sure. None of us can ignore the dismaying reality that we are a country still divided on key matters of dignity and equality. And we can never lose sight of our commitment to justice and freedom for all. Still, I felt, it was progress.
Or was it?
Why is it so important that a future president be able to speak easily and openly about their private faith? Is it essential to voters to know what--at their cores--candidates believe and how those beliefs might influence their policies and actions as president of the United States? Is an individual politician’s private faith a matter for public dissection? Are we entitled to know what spirit is moving in their hearts? There is an anti-discrimination clause written into our Constitution pertaining to candidates for public office. Article 6 includes the stipulation that “no religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public trust under the United States.”
Now, after months of reading about the candidates’ religious affiliations and watching them elbow one another to get to the head of the line to talk about their private prayer practice or their personal relationship with the Lord, I find I am growing suspicious of the merit of this trend in the public discourse.
How much of this conversation has become just another calculated strategy to win votes? A pandering to a perceived powerful voting bloc? Have we—using the media and progressive religious voices as proxies--begun to administer a new kind of religious litmus test?
What role faith should play in our American democracy is not a new question. Religion’s role was hotly contested at our founding and the debate has ebbed and flowed in intensity throughout 42 presidencies. Unitarian Universalist minister Forrest Church has traced the role of God in the White House in his new book So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle over Church and State. “While church and state are separate under the constitution,” writes Reverend Church, “religion and politics mix freely in our national life.”
In wondering if is there too much or too little religion in American politics today, Rev. Church concludes that perhaps there is “too little of the religion as defined by Thomas Jefferson, who said, ‘It is in our lives and not in our words that our religion must be read.’”
Which brings me to Kenya.
I met Eden Grace years ago at the Friends Meeting on Chestnut Street—up on Beacon Hill—just across from the First Church parsonage, where Stephen and Liz Kendrick live with their family. My husband Lewis attends Friends Meeting, and I would sometimes go with him. I honestly don’t remember much about Eden other than her unusual name, but Lew kept me posted on her activities as a representative to the World Council of Churches.
In 2004, Eden, along with her husband Jim and their two young sons, left Boston to follow their calling to work in East Africa. Jim discovered that his business talents qualified him to be a hospital administrator in an institution reeling from years of corruption and mismanagement, while Eden employed her Harvard Divinity School education doing leadership training and developing partnerships through her work with Friends Africa Ministries. The boys attended a local school.
On my list of places I most hope to visit before I die, Africa has never been one of them. Amidst all the crises emanating from that complicated continent, I confess, I have not been attentive to any particular one. Sadly, when I find I am suffering “compassion fatigue,” Africa is often the first place that falls off my radar.
But in recent weeks, I find I am paying more attention to the violence on the streets and in the markets of Kenyan cities and towns. I read the reports and listen for news on NPR because I know that Eden Grace and her family live in Kisumu, the third largest city in Kenya, and the birthplace of the failed presidential challenger, Mr. Odinga.
In the past month, lives in the city of Kisumu have been wracked with tension, food shortages, danger and dislocation as that country reels from the violently contested outcome of their recent democratic presidential elections.
As businesses were looted, and people were beaten, burned and killed, Eden kept in touch with Friends internationally, bringing a personal face to the pain of a country and culture that otherwise seems so foreign and far away.
I am happy to say that in her latest email, Eden writes that they have returned home and feel safer and the boys have resumed school. Even as I was concerned about her family’s welfare, I began to wonder, what is they doing there, in harm’s way?
The Religious Society of Friends in Africa is doing what they have done through their religious history: peacefully expressing their faith in the public square. Standing on the thoughtfully wrought ground of their faith-based Peace Testimony, African Friends have issued a call for Peace and Justice to the Kenyan leadership.
In language that is powerful in its simplicity, the Friends articulate their basic “principles and values that under-gird [their] concerns, ” that compel them to call on their leaders for the restoration of Truth and Justice, and an end to bloodshed. They even make specific proposals for how to regain the public trust and establish a new Kenyan constitution!
Their practical and tangible role in all this is to staff institutions and offer training and services for Alternatives to Violence; Trauma Healing, and Peace Building.
After reading their tough-minded call to peace action to the president and his challenger, another Quaker living in America commented: This could get them killed…
Human history is graced with ancestors who have put their lives on the line as they gave expression to their private faith in the public square. As individuals and religiously identifiable groups, they have as the expression goes, talked the talk and, more critically, walked the walk.
Inspired and at the same time challenged by this group of Friends, I wondered, how would we as people of Unitarian Universalist faith call our leaders at home and around the world to Truth, Justice, and Peace? On what solid ground of faith would we stand?
I’m proud to tell you that our religious community is also represented in Kenya at this very challenging moment in its history. UU Service Committee Charlie Clements and the Rev. Rosemary Bratt McNay of Fourth Universalist Church in New York are part of delegation that has traveled to Kenya to bear witness, collect stories, and bring hope to the people of Kisumu and other Africans, including African Unitarian Universalists. Our public faith can be expressed on this international field because we stand firmly on our religious principles that affirm human dignity, freedom from oppression, the democratic process, justice for all, and the noble goal of peace.
Our association’s President Bill Sinkford, in a pastoral letter on Kenya prayed with the psalmist: “From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”
(Psalm 61:2) He writes:
“Yet shaken down with despair, we raise our eyes to the rock that is higher,
And we find inspiration not only in our own communities of faith,
but from the very places where these atrocities are occurring.
Because we hear from the very same places
that Freedom and Justice are still on the lips of our brothers and sisters there:
That Hope remains alive,
That Compassion is still at work,
That the Dawn of a New Day is yet within sight.
So, we will join our brothers and sisters in crying unto thee:
“LEAD US ALL TO THE ROCK THAT IS HIGHER.”
There is a role, I believe, for a public faith: It is to share the cry of those who suffer. To stand in solidarity for the righteous goals of justice and liberty. To raise our faithful voices in a call for the restoration of Truth. Let us look for inspiration to our forbearers who served their faith with “moral purpose” and “useful righteousness” for the common good. We can look to “[t]wo Unitarians - Thomas Jefferson and John Adams – [who] wanted the abolition of slavery written into the Declaration of Independence; and [the] Unitarians [who]worked continuously against slavery until it was abolished. [To] Horace Mann, a Unitarian, [who] founded the American public school system. [To] Dorothea Dix…a pioneer in prison reform and in care of the [mentally ill]. Henry Bellows was the chief founder of the American Red Cross. Levi Leonard founded the free public libraries. Henry Bergh inaugurated the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Margaret Fuller, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Julia Ward Howe were foremost leaders in the struggle to obtain equal rights for women.” This is our tradition of a public faith.
Perhaps there is a test of public faith that all who would lead should have to pass: to demonstrate their capacity to do the real and tangible work of justice, done with hearts and minds and hands, systems and institutions strengthened by the power of love. Not because there is an infallible law that arises from the Bible and guides us at the ballot box. But because it is faithful to the natural laws of humanity: “to treat one another with respect and dignity, [and to] come together as human beings in [civility] and cooperation to repair and improve the world around us.” This is a public faith I would not hesitate to endorse. May it be so.
BENEDICTION
As we go from this sacred space, let us bless one another with this prayer from Rev. Sinkford, “Spirit of Life, be with us and help us be healers in this hurting world. Inspire us to confront injustice with the power of love. And show us how to make the power of love real and tangible; we know this is the work that we are called to do.” AMEN.
