But, He Has Nothing On!
Sermon by The Rev. Michael R. Leduc
at First Parish in Plymouth Unitarian Universalist
March 10, 2002
A few months back the newspapers carried a number of stories about
Boston's Episcopal bishops protesting the treatment of Palestinians
by the Israelis. Following their protest the bishops experienced a good
deal of heat from the community, both Jewish and otherwise concerning
their actions. A Jewish friend called me requesting the Bishops protest
be placed on the agenda of the No Place For Hate Committee with the
intention that we would condemn their protest as anti-Semitic and an
act of hate.
At first I did not quite know what to think about the assertion that
the Bishop's protest was anti-Semitic. The impression I had was that
their actions were a thoughtful protest against the repressive policies
of one of our major allies in the world. While it was bad enough in
the Middle East when the Bishops protested we have watched the carnage
steadily escalate over the past few months with neither side willing
to back down. All that is happening is an ever increasing cycle of death
and destruction which has led to more hurt, pain and anger as dozens
of people on both sides are killed and maimed each day.
What struck me most were the opinion columns and the letters to the
editor following the Bishop's protest. The responses were fast and furious
in an effort to shut them down, to silence them, to label them anti-Semites.
The attempts to discredit their thoughtful, faith-filled dissent to
the accepted, unquestioned party-line thought concerning Israeli/Palestinian
relations was unrelenting and unforgiving. I felt for those Bishops,
and the others who chose to say the emperor has nothing on or at least
questioned his wardrobe.
Of course I have been thinking a lot about dissent in recent months.
As far back as September 14th I have been thinking about it after reading
columnist Robert Kuttner's opinion piece in the Boston Globe that began
"The first casualty of war is said to be truth, and a close second
is civil liberty." He went on to say, "Brace yourself for
sweeping plans for expanded electronic surveillance, security cordons
around public spaces, more random searches of ordinary citizens, limits
on peaceful protests, ethnic profiling, and star-chamber treatment for
people accused of associating with terrorists."
Sadly most of his predictions have come true. He cited numerous historical
events, usually war, that have narrowed our liberties, often to excess,
under the guise of national security. The day after I preached my sermon
questioning our response to the terrorist attacks was the anniversary
of President Roosevelt signing the order authorizing the internment
of Japanese citizens in World War II. During World War I government
authorities rounded up people suspected of pacifist sympathies. The
McCarthy era is a shining example of American civil liberties being
trampled with laws such as the Internal Security Act of 1950. This federal
law allowed for the fingerprinting and registration of all "subversives"
at large in the United States. The definition of who was "subversive"
was left to the discretion of the powers that be. It also authorized
the creation of detention camps for "emergency situations."
From 1957 to 1971 the Counterintelligence program was used by the FBI
to infiltrate and disrupt religious and political organizations during
civil rights, anti-war, and human rights campaigns. As Senator Frank
Church, while investigating the all-too-frequent abuses by the FBI,
said, the FBI was waging a "secret war against those citizens it
considers a threat to the established order." (Hentoff, p. 16)
Our Attorney General has just reinstituted the use of this Counterintelligence
Program. This should be of great concern for us.
President Clinton signed legislation that took away due process for
immigrants and restricted the right of habeas corpus, the right to not
be imprisoned illegally. He signed a law allowing the government to
summarily seize property, usually as a result of drug arrests, regardless
of whether a person was guilty of a crime or even remotely connected
with the guilty person.
This past Thursday was the anniversary of the 1965 march by civil rights
demonstrators in Selma Alabama that was broken up by state police and
a sheriff's posse. The state flexed its muscle to quell dissent to unjust
laws that were a threat to the established order.
Throughout our history, many of our civil liberties have been both
subtly and not so subtly undercut by reactionary laws and government
edicts. There has been a constant tension between the right to question
public policies, to dissent and what is perceived by those in power
as the need for "social order." Though it is not my goal today
to speak about specific policies or political issues it is important
to see how we as a nation have dealt with dissenting opinions of the
past and present, the prominent place dissent holds within our national
culture and our faith. As one commentator remarked, since September
11th, "We've never seen a rollback of free speech like this…"
(Jurkowitz, p. 12) But again, this is not a sermon on the events of
September 11th. Rather it is a look at dissent and its place in our
culture. The events of the past few months are merely the impetus for
reflection.
Professor Steven Shiffrin of Cornell University in his book Dissent,
Injustice and the Meanings of America defines dissent, as embedded
in the First Amendment of our Bill of Rights as,
"[S]peech that criticized existing customs, habits, traditions,
institutions or authorities….Dissent is a practice of vital importance
to the self realization of many individuals, and even more important,
a crucial institution for challenging unjust hierarchies and promoting
progressive change." (Shiffrin, pp. x - xi)
Professor Edwin Scott Gaustad further reflects this thinking in his
book Dissent in American Religion when he writes,
"In America religious dissent is as vital as it is elusive. Like
the secretions of the pituitary, the juices of dissent are essential
to the ongoing life…Should a society actually succeed…in suffocating
all contrary opinion, then it's own vital juices no longer flow and
the shadow of death begins to fall across it…Dissent is not a social
disease…" The answers to dissent determines "how firm
or fine that line between a society that is open and one that is closed,
a society that is virile and creative as opposed to one that is sterile
and decadent. To steal a rhythm from [American theologian] Reinhold
Niebuhr, consent makes democracy possible; dissent makes democracy meaningful."
(Gausted pp. 1, 2)
This country was founded and initially populated by religious dissenters.
The right to express dissent toward the actions of the standing order
is deeply embedded in our national psyche.
We, as members of this specific and particular church, are heirs to
a great dissenting tradition.
The Puritans were also a dissenting tradition.
As were the Quakers…
And the Baptists…
As were countless other faiths that came to these shores to begin again
in freedom…
All were persecuted for their dissenting views.
Today we Unitarian Universalists live in relative comfort as we operate
within the acceptable structures of society; we tend to forget how deeply
our dissenting tradition goes. Our tradition is "built upon the
necessity for free speech as a tool of liberated [people]." (Fritchman,
p. 198) Within our tradition the right and responsibility to exercise
free speech and dissent has long been viewed as a sacred trust in the
search for truth. As the Rev. Stephen Fritchman wrote in the early days
of the Red Scare,
"We, the plain citizens, are sovereign, and our use of free speech
is a right more precious than rubies. It is our guarantee of survival.
Those of us familiar with Jewish and Christian history know that this
dependence on the free voice of the people is the core of our religion.
Jehovah tells the young Samuel centuries ago, 'Harken unto the voice
of the people in all they say unto thee.'" (Fritchman, p. 202)
The history of peaceful (and if necessity calls for it violent) dissent
and accompanying civil disobedience over the past two hundred years
has been deeply influenced by our Unitarian and Universalist thinking.
Unitarian Henry David Thoreau's essay on Civil Disobedience and Universalist
Adin Ballou's Christian Non-resistance influenced Tolstoy whose thinking
and personal correspondence influenced Gandhi who then deeply influenced
Martin Luther King, Jr. Yes, major social movements of the twentieth
century have found their grounding within among other things, Unitarian
and Universalist expression of dissent.
Our own Unitarian statesman Thomas Jefferson wrote to Alexander Hamilton,
"Our people took their freedom in their own hands so that never
again would the corrupt will of one man oppress them. You cannot fix
fear in their hearts, or make fear their principle of government.'
"A few years after Jefferson died, the founder of organized Unitarianism
Dr. William Ellery Channing, proclaimed in Boston the foundation theme
of our churches to this day: "Freedom of opinion, of speech, of
press, is our most valuable privilege, the very soul of republican institutions,
the safeguard of all other rights. Nothing awakens and improves men
so much as free communications of thoughts and feelings." Then
he concluded: "If rulers succeed in silencing every voice but that
which approves of them, if nothing reaches the people but what would
lend support to men in power - farewell to liberty. The form of a free
government may remain, but the life, the soul, the substance have fled."
(Fritchman, pp. 200 - 201)
So what has all this to do with today? I believe it is fairly obvious.
Dissent in the months since the September disaster has been bullied
into silence. I have had people share with me personal experiences of
being screamed at and threatened if they voiced anything that even mildly
disagreed with the current policies of the government.
Yet, as columnist Patricia J. Williams writes,
"Whatever the issue, whatever the time, we must resist a mindset
that defines those who are 'with us' as those who accept all policies
as untouchable, all military action as automatically legitimate, all
criticism as giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Otherwise we consign
people who are engaged in the essence of democratic debate to the conceptual
dustbin of those who are 'against us.' You're either on board as a team
player or you're a brainless, over intellectualized, group-thinking,
anarchistic, socialist, communist, Stalinist, nihilistic, solipsistic,
atheistic, politically correct, race-card-playing feminazi crackpot."(Williams,
p. 9)
It is the work of the church, whatever the church, to be the voice
of dissent in society. Free speech, and the accompanying right to question
the powers that be, is a central principle in our history. It is our
function to question our rulers, to hold them accountable before higher
principles that transcend the immediate needs or desires of the moment.
It is the sacred calling of the churches to hold our leaders accountable
to these principles before they become tools of greedy plunderers seeking
to exploit the situation and the world for their own selfish gains.
Any church that does not stand outside the intimate circles of power,
calling those in power to judgment, becomes a mere pawn of the established
order. When this happens the church becomes a domesticated and fearful
puppet like the Emperor's ministers who would not say the Emperor had
nothing on. Rather than be a moral, visionary voice of what can be,
the church becomes a supporter of the status quo.
For us, in these troubled times or actually at any time, it is not
unpatriotic to question our public policies. It is our duty as both
citizens and people of faith. Truth never need fear dissent for if it
be true it shall rise to the surface unscathed. If an alleged "truth"
be in actuality a falsehood then it needs to be pointed out and challenged.
The only way for this to occur is through open and honest dialogue.
Dissent and those who dissent are not always right. Sometimes dissenters
are nothing more than troublemakers bent on destruction. Certainly those
in the established order look to anyone who threatens their place of
status as troublemakers. Yet, if we look at history there are many,
many episodes where the suppression of dissent and the unquestioned
overreaching of the government have proven to be some of the more embarrassing
and disturbing moments in the life of our nation and always seen at
the time by those in power as a "special case deserving of extraordinary
measures."
Exercising our freedom is a right and a privilege. It is a moral and
a civic responsibility. We have a moral duty to both support and dissent,
to exercise our consciences in freedom to discern the truth that is
in concert with our faith values and beliefs which should transcend
the transitory demands of the moment. As Archibald MacLeish wrote,
"Freedom is not something to save, it is something to use."
(Fritchman, p. 204)
The Episcopal bishops were right to question the behavior of the Israelis,
along with those of the Palestinians. Both sides are behaving immorally
and need to be called to account. Rather than be silenced the bishops
need to be heard. Dissent helps to keep us honest. We have a moral obligation
to point out when our leaders have nothing on, or at least raise the
issue, for if we don't, then who is the fool? Amen.
Resources
Fritchman, Stephen H. For the Sake of Clarity. Selected Sermons and
Addresses. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1992.
Gausted, Edwin Scott. Dissent in American Religion. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1973.
Hentoff, Nat. "Liberal Laryngitis" in The Progressive,
February, 2002, Vol. 66, Number 2. pp. 16 - 17.
Jurkowitz, Mark. "The Big Chill" in The Boston Globe Magazine,
January 27, 2002, pp. 11ff.
Shiffrin, Steven H. Dissent, Injustice and the Meanings of America.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Williams, Patricia J. "The Beloved Community" in The Nation,
February 11, 2002. Volume 274, Number 5, p. 9.
