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The enforcement of the boundary between church and state does not mean that concerned citizens cannot bring their religious beliefs to their community activities and even their political activism. But religion would be restrained if these activities were performed in the name of the state—if, for example, one undertook these civic activities as a member of the school board or as the senate majority leader.

Each of the camps in this apparent opposition (secularists “versus” religionists) emphasize one of the two principles of religious freedom (disestablishment “versus” free exercise), but not the other. We take an alternative path. In our view, there is no necessary contradiction between disestablishment and free exercise. We think that if the United States is ever to enact true religious freedom—rather than [mere] religious toleration—both principles must be applied.

Being secular is not a positive virtue like being reasonable, wise, or loving. To be secular, one need do nothing more than live in perpetual opposition to the unsubstantiated claims of religious dogmatists. Consequently, secularism has negligible appeal to the culture at large (a practical concern) and negligible content (an intellectual concern). There is, in fact, not much to secularism that should be of interest to anyone, apart from the fact that it is all that stands between sensible people ... and the mad hordes of religious imbeciles who have balkanized our world, impeded the progress of science, and now place civilization itself in jeopardy. But secularism, being nothing more than the totality of such criticism, can lead its practitioners to reject important features of human experience simply because they have been traditionally associated with religious practice.

Sam Harris, in Free Inquiry Magazine, published by the Council for Secular Humanism

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

...Is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and stature.... Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.

The Council for Secular Humanism celebrated its 25^th anniversary last fall. The Council for Secular Humanism is the publisher of Free Inquiry Magazine, which has as it’s tag-line: “Celebrating Reason and Humanity.” All this celebrating sounds pretty positive to me. Could these be the same secular humanists so feared as the bane of our Christian nation?

Well, take a look at that 25^th anniversary issue of Free Inquiry and you’ll quickly see that they have a pretty strange way of celebrating. The cover reads, “Secularism: Will it Survive?” And the cover image is a dark sky, with a glint of orange in the clouds. You can’t tell if it’s sundown (Hah! They know they’re dying out!) or sunrise (alert, alert, their sinister plans are just beginning).

Actually the magazine is a pretty unusual, not necessarily dark, but refreshingly honest look at secularism and its challenges. The wide assortment of writers who attempt to answer that question, “Will secularism survive?” are not particularly kind to secularism; they can’t even agree on what secularism means; and many of them say, “No, secularism will not survive.” I have to give these people credit for publishing something so self-critical.

Who are the secularists? The label probably means something different when someone calls him or herself a secularist versus when someone else calls you a secularist. If by “secularist” we mean, simply, people who are not involved with any religious group, then this is a rapidly growing proportion of the U.S. population. In fact, by that definition, the number of secularists doubled between 1990 and 2001.

If instead it’s a question of self-labeling, then one recent study indicates that 16% of Americans identify themselves as “secular or somewhat secular.”

Some who choose to call themselves “secular” mean to say that they are “anti-religious.” They have experienced religion as coercive and dogmatic[1] -- as that which leaves people vulnerable to all kinds of manipulation and deceit. With good intention, then, these secularists are determined to keep religion out of human culture and even out of human consciousness. All of us have been burned by religious fanaticism, so it doesn’t surprise me that this kind of secularism exists. But I don’t support it for two reasons. First: I believe it’s impossible to eliminate ideas – even the most irrational and unhelpful ideas. Second: my response to dogma is that we need to criticize it, not suppress it.

[Which reminds me: 3 weeks from now I will be holding a class called “The Haunting Church – owning your religious past.” It’s often difficult to escape dogmas which we’ve been force-fed, even if we no longer consciously believe them. This class will explore ways to hold on to past religious understandings that have been helpful while letting go of those which have not been helpful. The class will be on a Friday evening and Saturday. Please contact me if you are interested.]

Back to secularists. In addition to those who are actively anti-religious are secularists who simply do not find religion helpful. They strive to be fair, honest, intelligent, humane, and optimistic in their personal lives, and they model and promote these same values for society at large. To them religion is sometimes annoying, but mostly just irrelevant. I agree with these secularists on almost everything, but I’ll say more in a bit about why I still find religion to be relevant.

Finally there is the secularism that has as its goal the denial of religious control over government. This, of course, is a secularism that I wholeheartedly endorse.

If you consider yourself a secularist by any of these definitions, then I imagine that you have been misunderstood at times. Your personal outlook is nuanced, and probably doesn’t fit perfectly into any of the boxes I’ve just described. And yet, even if you cannot put your own philosophy into words, some of your neighbors are convinced that they know exactly what you are: you are deluded. You are in the clutches of Satan.

This fear of secularism among some who are religious is not entirely surprising. I can understand why people feel confused, and even threatened even by the secularism which is devoted to religious freedom. Religious freedom is unsettling. To those who take it for granted that this is A Christian Nation, or to those who see bland christianity as neutral and natural, it really does seem as though those who are seeking free expression for other religions are asking for special rights. It really does seem as though those seeking to prevent government support of religion are trying to kill off religion altogether. But it isn’t so.

To demonstrate that secularism is consistent with both social consciousness and a thriving religious institution, I can’t think of a better way than to point out the work of John Faville. John, who turned 80 this week, comes here every week to clean the offices and bathrooms, vacuum the sanctuary, pick up litter, and straighten out the name tags. He also chairs our music committee. Most importantly, he does this work with joy. He does it because he wants us to enjoy our church home and he wants to support our message of religious pluralism. And of course he’s not alone here – neither in his secularism nor in his commitment.

Amendments to the U.S. Constitution have in almost all cases had the effect of extending freedom. The first 10 amendments – The Bill of Rights – have served us particularly well to preserve liberty. But the Bill of Rights was written long ago, and times have changed. Some say that the world is more dangerous now. So we need tighter controls over one another. Civil liberties are overrated. We need to do unto others before they do unto us.

Current threats to security are obvious and serious. Threats to liberty might seem trivial by comparison. Such as the bill making its way through the French Parliament, which would make it a crime to deny that Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks in World War One. This may seem like an obscure matter to us, but what a dangerous precedent this is: to criminalize an idea.

Or consider the bill president Bush signed into law this week which will allow the American government to torture and to detain (anyone they wish to label an “enemy combatant”) without charge or trial.

Consider the Patriot Act. The U.S. State Department and Homeland Security “have interpreted the language of the Patriot Act so loosely that, according to official documents ... anyone who is guilty of ‘irresponsible expressions of opinion’ can be refused entry to the United States.” [The New Yorker, Oct 16, 2006] It frightens me that these threats to basic liberties are not widely understood to be threats to international security.

Perhaps we simply do not understand enough about the foundations of our free society. So today I would like to draw attention to the first 16 words of the first amendment, which speak of religious freedom. The Founders of our nation, overwhelmingly skeptical of religion in general and especially apprehensive about religion in cahoots with government, went out of their way, against significant opposition, to ensure that civil and religious authority would not be entangled.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof....” In just 16 words we find the basis of religious freedom in the form of two clauses – the establishment clause, and the free exercise clause. Secularists tend to emphasize the first half, the establishment clause. They work strenuously to ensure that at all levels[2], government neither supports a particular religion, nor religion in general over non-religion.

I applaud their efforts. Non-establishment is essential. But it is not enough. True religious freedom requires free expression and non-establishment. These two halves of the whole of religious freedom are not at odds with one another, but dependent upon one another for their very existence. To pass the test of the first amendment then, public policy has to meet both criteria. And yet we have cases where people mistakenly argue for their religious freedom on the basis of one half of the equation while ignoring the other.

As I mentioned above, there are forms of secularism that promote non-establishment to the point that they deny free expression. On the flip side we have “faith-based initiatives” which claim to be consistent with the free exercise clause, but flout disestablishment. For example, a faith based, government supported job training program in Texas required those in attendance to accept Jesus as their lord and savior (in a county where no other secular programs were available).

It isn’t enough simply to promote religious freedom as a broad principle. I believe we are called to create the conditions within which people can actually freely exercise. For this we need not only non-establishment, but also civics education, public engagement, and a collective willingness to adjust to new information and experience. Without these social conditions, religious freedom is an empty shell, a pretty package of lies.

Free expression is not a matter of separating our public from our private lives. Real freedom means being able to express our religious selves not just in private but even in public. It’s not just freedom to do your own thing behind closed doors. It’s not “Don’t offend us and we won’t beat the crap out of you, throw rocks through your windows, arrest you, or have you fired from your job.” That unspoken compromise is not religious freedom.

Of course it’s not always “them” who keep us in the closet. Whenever we whisper to one another to make sure that we don’t expose ourselves to our neighbors... whenever we duck out of conversations which could reveal who we are, with whom we associate, and what values we support, we betray our commitment to religious freedom.

Growing up I attended a Catholic school. Many of my friends attended public school. For a brief period I thought this meant that, while we were Catholics, they were publics. This silly but true story represents a confusion, an ignorance that we continue to hold as a society about the meaning of the word “public.”

Separation of church and state doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t bring our religious understandings to the table in public debates. Of course these understandings are always with us. Yes, the word “public” is also often used as a synonym for “government sponsored.” So it’s important to distinguish that while government needs to refrain from supporting religion, this does not mean that religion needs to stay private in the sense of behind closed doors.

We’re mistaken if we think that keeping religion boxed up will create peace and tranquility.

Such so-called privacy – a failure to express ourselves and reveal our differences openly – simply buries conflict until it erupts into violence. A healthy society, rather, exhibits “a robust pluralism that makes room for competing and even contradictory visions of the good life.” [Jakobsen, see citation above.]

Freedom of conscience is much more than just staying in our heads. To think that religion is purely a matter of ideas isolated inside of us ... is like saying that it’s ok to be gay as long as you don’t actually practice.

Religion too is in our actions. Which is why we have to give others the space to practice theirs, and why we have to have the courage to practice our own.

Last week we took a collection so that we could run an ad in the local papers declaring our opposition to the proposed State Constitutional Amendment which would deny equality in marriage. Because – within this congregation – we celebrate our differences, we had to go through a lengthy and extraordinarily careful process to get to the point where we could speak on such a matter with one voice.

Of course, since political action groups are not tax-exempt[3], there is also the question of whether religious groups can participate in political activity without losing their tax-exempt status. This is an important question not only because we want to be above-board in our actions, but also because we don’t want others to get away with conducting political campaigns from within tax-exempt religious organizations.

So we need to know the rules. And please understand that, as much as I oppose government making rules for churches, I support those rules currently in existence because they are not burdensome, they have a rational basis, and, consistently applied, they do a good job of clarifying the wall of separation between church and state.

In brief, the rules are in three parts. When it comes to endorsing a candidate, a tax-exempt group cannot do so, period. When it comes to advocacy for general social causes, a tax-exempt group can do so as much as it wants. When it comes to advocacy for a particular piece of legislation, a tax-exempt group can do so, but only up to a certain threshold. That threshold is somewhat ambiguous. The IRS has ruled that a tax-exempt group cannot devote a “substantial” amount of its resources to such activity. Current advice is that “substantial” means around 5% of a congregation’s resources, which for us would mean about $10,000 per year. There’s little danger that we’re going to be devoting this much to particular legislation. [For a more detailed treatment see http://www.uua.org/uuawo/new/article.php?id=314]

So if we are not a political group, what are we? Are we a religious group? Sometimes its hard to see that we are. Unitarian Universalism is known for being skeptical about religion. But it would be a mistake to think of Unitarian Universalism as just another version of secularism. It would be a mistake to think that Unitarian Universalism is at its core a rejection of religion, or even a rejection of religious authority.

Unitarian Universalism does recognize religious authority. But we do not locate authority in dogmas which cannot be questioned. Nor do we locate authority in the ancient past, or in the chain of command. We recognize instead the authority, the meaning, the power within the web of community – community created voluntarily, and sustained by covenant... community sustained by mutual ongoing consent.

Unitarian Universalism offers an alternative to those who are unwilling to submit to dogmatic authority, but who recognize that individualism is insufficient. Unitarian Universalism is for those who recognize the inherent worth of their own ideas and opinions, but just as readily recognize the value of everyone else’s ideas and opinions. UUism is for those who find – in their voluntary covenant with one another – a wholeness not unlike the wholeness of free-expression coupled with non-establishment.

A group of religiously free people is not just cacophony. It is something different than a wild collection of uninhibited individuals mouthing off.

Our commitment as UUs is to form and re-form community. To create healthy interaction and learning space wherever 2 or more are gathered.

This is important for a variety of reasons. One is that we want a place where people will accept us as we are, with all of our imperfections. A community in which we are allowed our own voice, even if we’re in a demographic category traditionally suppressed by religions... even if our theology is unconventional... even if we’re not finished figuring out who we are.

Each time we welcome a new member to our congregation we re-form and re-affirm our covenant. Each time we welcome a new child in our midst we re-form and re-affirm our covenant. It is a covenant not simply that we will leave each other alone. It is a covenant to engage and respond to the experience and needs of one another. To be in covenant is to be one’s whole honest self within the community and to support the community as a whole, taking on responsibility for the group and accountability to the promises made within the group.

This of course is not just something that happens in congregations. This kind of covenant can take place within any group, any family, any two or more people who voluntarily assent to an ongoing relationship.

To live in covenant, then, we voluntarily accept limits to our freedom in order to promote something larger than ourselves which we hold dear. We lovingly criticize each others failings, and acknowledge the failings of the group to live up to its aspirations. We remain accountable to our promises, and therefore we accept the loving criticism of others who are committed to what is best for the whole group.

Such a covenant involves mutual respect and acknowledgement of each person’s freedom of conscience. There is no coercion. Opinions are freely offered, and rejected, without acrimony. In covenant we do not listen to one another because of some law, but because of our genuine recognition of each other’s value.

Of course one can’t just call a covenant like this into existence. It must arise organically, through acts of love and generosity, through risk and vulnerability and maintenance of healthy boundaries, democratic structures, and humility, gratitude, humor, and forgiveness.

Secularists, of course, appreciate these same principles, but I call UUism religious because of what we do with these values, together, not as a solitary pursuit.

It would be a mistake to think that UUism is simply a dissenting religion. Almost all Americans think of themselves as religious dissenters. Why would anyone wish to join us if we are nothing more than a disconnected collection of narcissistic individualistic dissenters? Why join a UU church for that? You can find it cheaper at Wal-Mart.

This is not an easy “we should all get along” naiveté. Our covenants last only if we understand the context, the difficulties, the human frailties that we bring to this experiment.

Our promotion of the inherent worth and dignity of all people is not an individualistic self-centered proposition. We affirm the inherent worth not just of ourselves, but of everyone else. Even those who sin. Even those who harm us. Even those who betray the covenant in the worst way.

Some congregations get very explicit in defining their covenant. Others hope that these expectations just hang in the air and are understood through our traditions and our treatment of one another and in our generosity toward the common work.

Glorified coffee hour has not yet become a tradition. It is not celebrating its 25^th anniversary and I’m not even sure it’s going to make it past 25 days. It was something I suggested in the last newsletter, partly in jest, partly as a challenge. Since there seems to be a great love for both potlucks and coffee hour, and yet there is not going to be convenient space this year for either, I wondered: would you as a covenanted community be willing to try an experiment for the purposes both of hospitality to newcomers who might hang around and see what we’re about and – as an even riskier experiment – to expose yourselves to one another in all your religious glory?

So I invited you to bring snacks to share, about a quarter of you each week. I arbitrarily assigned week 1 to humanists, agnostics, and atheists...week 2 to christians and theists... week 3 to pagans, pantheists, and polytheists, and week 4 (this week) to those who defy labels.

There are all kinds of reasons why this will not work. The labels are too confining. They don’t necessarily belong together (just last week I told you that I was a christian but not a theist), and many of us would fall into 2 or 3 or even 4 of these uncomfortable pigeonholes.

I sympathize with all of you who feel challenged by these realities, and in order to make it easier for you, I will attempt to explain what I mean by each of these theological words in the weeks to come. I will also encourage you to define these words – each in your own way. And I will acknowledge the dangers and improper uses of labels.

But if the reason that this will not work is simply that we’re unwilling to be out with one another, then obviously there is nothing I can do to help. No wait – there is one thing I can do. I can say that this is a safe place for conflict, a loving and non-judgmental place where people are allowed to be confused and allowed to change their minds.

There. I can spout off these kinds of ideas. But only you can make them true in practice.

In order to fulfill our dream of religious freedom, there are a few mistakes that we’ll need to overcome:

1. The mistake of thinking that freedom is a limited commodity such that in order to give it to one person you have to take it away from someone else.

2. The mistake of thinking that religious freedom is simply a matter of forcefully expressing yourself – such as in faith-based initiatives like flying planes into buildings.

3. The mistake of thinking that “Don’t ask don’t tell” is consistent with religious freedom.

4. Finally, the mistake of censoring ourselves. For censoring ourselves will only perpetuate the sad status quo in our society: in which far too many recoil from religion, and lose the opportunity for some deep relationships, because in their experience “religious freedom” is an oxymoron.

[1] By “dogma” I mean statements which are presented as final truths, against which one is not allowed to argue.

[2] Uninformed letters-to-the-editor will periodically cry out that the 1^st Amendment only applies to “Congress.” But the legal principle that all levels of government are restrained from restricting federal civil rights is simply non-controversial. This began with the 14^th Amendment – ratified to protect the voting rights of the newly freed slaves. The 14^th Amendment is now interpreted to mean that neither state nor local governments may denying the rights of any U.S. citizen.

[3] Therefore contributions made toward the ad are not tax-exempt.

October 22, 2006

Rev. Paul Beckel

First Universalist Unitarian Church ~ www.uuwausau.org