Writer H. L. Mencken once sardonically said, "I do not believe in democracy; but I am perfectly willing to admit that it provides the only really amusing form of government ever endured by (humanity)."[1] Mencken is fully justified in that assessment as we recover from the voting fiasco in Florida and prepare to inaugurate a president who lost the popular vote by 300,000. Only in America. That has to be an embarrassment, no matter what one's political predilections.
Saturday we will hear President-elect George W. Bush's Inaugural Address. Such events are an intriguing mixture of campaign stump speech, lecture and sermon - and represent a triumph of hope over experience. As one cynic observes, campaign promises are the political equivalent of junk bonds.[2] Nonetheless, I'm eagerly awaiting what he has to say then and in the State of the Nation Address.
Meanwhile, I'd like to do my own assessment of the moral state of the nation, aided by my understanding of the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we celebrate tomorrow. It is not an altogether pleasing picture.
To say I was deeply dismayed by what happened in Florida is a vast understatement. Former President Jimmy Carter, who has monitored controversial elections around the world, said he was appalled at the process. I thought that we ought to "trust the people" in a simple hand count of the disputed ballots and let the chips (or chads) fall where they may. And so I was upset with the Florida Supreme Court for their foot-dragging; angry with the Florida Secretary of State for her seeming indifference to the flawed processs for which she had responsibility; angry with the U.S. Supreme Court, which after so often asserting the priority of state's rights, decided it must invoke federal supremacy and thereby determine the next President of the United States. It was altogether mystifying and upsetting.
Anger is a dangerous word. Former Governor and presidential candidate Michael Dukakis said he had always been against capital punishment, but if Ralph Nader tipped the election he'd make an exception. "I'll strangle the guy with my bare hands."[3] Many are angry at Al Gore for conducting a miserable campaign. Others are angry at Bill Clinton for having sacrificed the Gore candidacy on the altar of his weakness of the flesh. Still others are angry at George W. Bush because they believe he was illegitimately elected and because he seems such a threat to values many hold dear. And, of course, many are just plain mad at or about, Hillary Clinton.
But poet Marge Piercy writes of "a just anger (which) acted upon is beautiful as lightning and swift with power. A good anger swallowed, clots the blood to slime."[4] And so, whatever your political stance, and there is a whole spectrum represented in this sanctuary, you were probably angry about some election day result. Let not your anger "clot the blood to slime;" rather let your anger purify your soul and amplify your resolve for justice-making in 2001.
As an individual, I am a partisan person; I belong to a political party; I vote. But as a minister I have a different role. My mission is to rise above my partisan prejudices and take up the prophetic role which has been bequeathed to me by those prophets of the human spirit who have dared speak truth to power. Martin Luther King, Jr. is perhaps the best embodiment of the prophet in our time. He spoke and acted with what one writer called "the soul of a citizen, living with conviction in a cynical time."[5] It was he who said "There are some things in our social system to which all of us ought to be maladjusted."[6]
You may recall in mid-December I wrote in our newsletter: "Mercifully Election 2000 is over! The politicians have said all the right things about healing and bi-partisanship. Democracy transcends winning and losing. But with all the talk of harmony we should not forget the tough issues which will emerge in 2001. Those who have been politically active and those who have been sitting on their hands should be inspired to renewed efforts. Enjoy the season, then let's get to work."
I hope you did enjoy the season, but now it is time to get to work. My work began Friday at Colgate Rochester Divinity School as I met with Congresswoman Louise Slaughter and about 30 clergy and laity from across the theological spectrum. We meet with her about every quarter to exchange views on a variety of topics facing our community and the nation. She is the consummate politician, gregarious, talkative, but on Friday she was in a much more somber mood than is customary.
One Methodist minister friend who couldn't be present urged us to discuss the election process and the alleged voting violations directed against many African Americans in Florida. There seemed to be broad concurrence here. I assumed that if he were alive, Martin Luther King, Jr. would be there demanding justice.
Louise told us she thinks that the McCain-Feingold bill outlawing unregulated "soft money" contributions to parties has a good chance of passage. Public financing of campaigns, which many of us believe is essential to getting big moneyed special interests out of politics, is a long way down the line. Big money will dominate politics for the foreseeable future - a tragedy for an ostensibly democratic nation. We have the specacle of Mr. Bush's economic summit, attended primarily by large campaign contributors and the Indonesian industrialist James Riadi's financial dealing with Bill Clinton, a campaign finance abuse which will prove highly embarrassing to the Democratic Party.
Health care was a major issue. We despaired of the forty-plus million still lacking health care coverage. Louise is not optimistic on this score - reform will come hard. Universal health care probably will not happen in our lifetimes. She told us an indicative story: There is an auto accident; the ambulance and the tow-truck arrive at the same time; the drivers debate what is to be done first. The tow-truck driver finally says he'll take the car back to the garage. Why? Because, unlike the accident victims, the car is totally insured.
Our group spent considerable time on welfare reform. The five-year lifetime limit on recipients is up this next year and millions will probably lose eligibility for support. Despite a booming economy poverty has declined only marginally. Politicians brag about reducing welfare roles, but say little about reducing poverty. In their benighted "wisdom" neither federal nor state governments have seen fit to adequately fund or evaluate these programs. With the obsession of the President-elect and the Congress on tax cuts mostly benefitting the already affluent, there seems little inclination to reduce poverty. The shame of poverty in the midst of plenty will continue. America just doesn't seem to care. Dr. King's "Poor People's March" needs to be repeated.
I am reminded of the Talmudic story about two men who came into town and saw a house burning. One man prayed "I hope that's not my house." The other rebuked him, saying, "That's an unethical prayer." America as a nation becomes increasingly self-serving. Most of our charitable dollars go to religious, cultural and educational institutions, not to ending poverty.
Education was high on our agenda, as it is on George W. Bush's. Louise expressed her support of a number of experiments in education, voicing cautious optimism about the nominee for Secretary of Education. She, like many of us, is strongly opposed to vouchers for private schools which will take desperately needed funds from the public schools. Governor Bush would make public schools accountable and deny federal money to those that fail. But is it fair to further punish communities in poverty already strapped for educational resources? In Rochester 85% of our public school students are so poor they qualify for federal lunch programs. For example, if our partnership School 22 should fail to meet standards, is it just to take money from it? What then? Who is going to educate those children? We underfund inner-city schools and increase academic standards; they fail, and so we divert funds somewhere else. It just doesn't make sense.
Our most heated exchange came over church-state separation. George W. Bush will establish an office of faith-based programs in the White House to coordinate efforts between the federal government and religious communities. While all agreed that the religious community ought to take more responsibility for the common good, how this is to be done is at issue. Who will choose which religious faith programs qualify? How non-discriminatory will some religious communities be regarding race, class and sexual orientation? What will be the implications of government entanglement with religious programs? How do we coordinate religious programs on a national scale? Will the religious community feel empowered to speak out on public issues if they are recipients of public funds? No one seems to know.
The environment came up as an issue in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision weakening the Clean Air Act. What can we expect from a nominee for Secretary of the Interior who once said that businesses had a basic "right to pollute"? One Sierra Club spokesman worried about anti-environmental riders on upcoming legislation: "Now, we may still have defensemen on the field, but we have no goalie. Bush won't veto any of this."[7]
There was a strong sense among us that these next several years will focus on saving programs we support rather than on taking new intiatives that will go nowhere.
There were a whole host of issues we did not discuss: the anti-ballistic missile system, despite failing its tests, despite its enormous cost, despite lack of a credible enemy, despite the opposition of friend and adversary alike - seems to be on a fast track. Another Pentagon boondoggle.
And then there is abortion - there are many Roman Catholics and Evangelical Protestants in our group and the issue seldom comes up for debate. But the issue will come up in executive orders, in appointments, in legislation and in foreign policy. And if George W. Bush nominates for the Supreme Court people like justices Antonin Scolia and Clarence Thomas, whom he says he admires, reproductive choice is seriously threatened.
I came out of Friday's meeting both exhillarated and depressed - exhillarated at the richness and seriousness of our democratic discussion on substantive issues - depressed because values I cherish are under assault and there is literally no court of appeal. I feel like the military scout who came back to his commander and said enthusiastically - "We can attack on any side - we're surrounded!"
Now, I know many of you are happy with the election - many of you disagree with my perspective on one or more issues. That is as it should be in a Unitarian Universalist church. I can only state my own concerns and convictions; you surely will state yours, and I invite you to next Sunday's forum to do just that.
What should be done? My own strategy is refracted through the lives of the prophets. Take the prophet Amos and his plumbline. The plumbline is that "length of string with a weight attached at one end to show a true vertical line to be used in construction of an object such as wall of a building or a fence. Amos sees the Lord with a plumb line in hand, which is used to test Israel. As a result of that test, Israel, for failing to be 'plumb' with God, will be destroyed."[8] The prophet is one who proclaims doom, but also hope: "Let justice flow down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream."
In that prophetic tradition I am an equal opportunity critic. I have critiqued Democrat and Republican alike through my 40 years of ministry. I reserved my sharpest barbs for Lyndon B. Johnson during the Vietnam War, but I also called for the impeachment of Richard M. Nixon in the wake of Watergate. I sounded off against Ronald Reagan's attack on government itself as the problem, and I chastised Bill Clinton not only for his sexual immorality, but also for his role in ending "welfare as we know it" without proper resources or accountability. Standing in that prophetic tradition, none of the presidents under whom I have lived have measured up to the plumbline of justice. George W. Bush can expect to hear from me soon and often, though I doubt he is trembling in his cowboy boots at the thought!
In forty years of activism I have discovered that some of the most effective social justice work grows out of anger, out of desperation, out of fear of losing cherished values. I remember well the first and largest gathering of our local chapter of what is now the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. We packed St. Paul's Episcopal Church in our first venture, meeting to support the Roe v. Wade decision after an unfavorable court decision. I'll be going to Family Planning Advocates' annual legislative meeting in Albany at the end of this month to participate on a panel about organizing clergy.
There was never a more exhillarating time than when the Vietnam War entered its foulest phase and many of us rallied to oppose it. There was never a more exciting time than working for civil rights - going to Selma and pressing for voter registration reform. Now we must do it all over again. All of which is to say that those who feel themselves part of the prophetic tradition are energized by adversity, challenged by threats to human values, focused by attempts to undo what good has been done.
I think of a story about Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement which has done and is doing so much to minister to the poor. The activist writer Parker Palmer once asked Dorothy Day how she could keep doing work that seemed to show no results: "The thing you don't understand, Parker, is that just because something is impossible doesn't mean you shouldn't do it! . . . "I have never asked myself if I was being effective, but only if I was being faithful."[9] Even in failure, if we speak truth to power, we will at least have that sense of integrity which the world can neither give nor take away.
A nameless theologian once pointed out that there are no adequate proofs for the existence of the God of Abraham - there are only witnesses. During the Second World War a French Communist said to a Dominican theologian: "Don't speak to me of Christianity. Just point out some Christians."[10]
Bearing witness. That is what we are called upon to do - in the moment when the cause of justice seems assured and when it seems most severely challenged. Bearing witness - not witessing as observing, but witnessing as acting out of conviction. As religious people, as Unitarian Universalists with a proud history of repairing the world, we cannot be content to be mere occupants of time and space. We want our time here on earth to mean something; we want the space in which we live and move and have our being to be washed in love and polished by justice. We are ill content to wear our religion only in our heads and hearts; we want it to be expressed with our hands.
I think of the cartoon of two figures who met for discussion of our political predicament: One said to the other, "Oh, it's better to light one little candle, but I find it a lot more emotionally fulfilling to curse the darkness." Cursing the darkness is not an acceptable Unitarian Universalist response.[11]
And so where are the Unitarian Universalists? I don't want proof of our theology. I want proof of our convictions. I hope to see some of you at the Living Wage hearing at City Council Tuesday night; I hope to see some of you protesting the nomination of former Senator John Ashcroft as Attorney General at a counter-inaugural demonstration January 20; I hope to see some of you join Interfaith Impact of New York State and attend our annual legislative briefing March 25; I hope to see some of you volunteering for work at School 22 or the Children's School, or on one of our other task forces; I hope to see some of you get involved with the political party of your choice and steer it toward the plumbline of justice. I hope to see you transform whatever your feelings are about this election into the ongoing work of justice-making.
A wise, old Middle Eastern mystic said this about himself. "I was a revolutionary when I was young, and all my prayer to God was: 'Lord, give me the energy to change the world.' As I approached middle age and realized that my life was half gone without my changing a single soul, I changed my prayer to: 'Lord, give me the grace to change all those who come into contact with me. 'Just my family and friends and I shall be satisfied.' Now that I am an old man and my days are numbered, I have begun to see how foolish I have been. My one prayer now is: 'Lord, give me the grace to change myself.' If I had prayed this right from the start, I would not have wasted my life.'"[12]
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