I attended and graduated from an alternative high school, which meant I went to a secondary school predicated upon youth empowerment and student-directed learning. We didn’t sit in rows, move between classes at the sound of ringing bells, or defer to a hierarchically ordered system of control. We sat in circles, called our teachers by their first names, and voted on which novels to read in English class. When I graduated high school, my friends and I had a choice. In the province of Quebec, there is the institution of CEGEP, a junior college that has both three-year vocational studies and a two-year pre-university certificate. There were alternatives within the CEGEP system, such as the New School at Dawson College, a humanities-based program of study based in the theories of humanistic psychology. This is where many of the students from my high school ended up. But there was also Reflections, a liberal-arts program where it seemed the students sat around on pillows and talked about how they felt about reading Shakespeare. Some graduates from my high school entered this program at Dawson College. Well, I couldn’t decide, so I enrolled in Social Sciences, a catchall program of arts and humanities courses. One of my classes my first semester at Dawson College was an introduction to English Literature with a professor who started us off by making us read stories from the King James Version of the Bible. At some point during the semester, she took me aside and said to me, “You’re wasting your time here. You’re going to get an A in this class and I suspect in every other class you’re taking. If you’re going to learn anything while you’re here at Dawson, you should be in the Liberal Arts Program.” Now, the Liberal Arts program was an honors program; you were supposed to be an A student and maintain an A average. I hadn’t even considered it. My English professor, on the other hand, had arranged for me to interview with the dean of the program, who (though the year had already started and I would have to make up some of the classes I missed the first term) was ready to accept me into the program based solely on my English professor’s recommendation. And so it came to pass that I became a Liberal Arts program student. We were a cozy group of a dozen students. We studied logic and epistemology and the ancient Greek philosophers. We did courses on the novel, poetry, drama, the history of Western art and architecture. We had regular graduate-school style seminars where we discussed Sir Thomas More’s Utopia and Machiavelli’s The Prince and John Locke and Thomas Paine. The program was designed to get us to read widely and think critically, developing our skills at both written expression and oral argument. “The liberal arts,” the current program description reads, “are based on the belief that disciplined learning is the road to freedom in one’s personal intellectual life and career.” When we speak of a liberal arts education, what we mean to say is learning within a broad spectrum of subjects that ground a student within Western traditions, a broad knowledge as opposed to learning a specific skill or craft or vocation. A liberal arts education, it has been said, is the study of useless things. There is no use to the liberal arts except the broadening of the mind. Based on ancient Greek thinking about education, the traditional liberal arts were opposed to the servile arts. It was what free men (and only men) studied, as opposed to skills that tradesmen and servants learned. In medieval Europe, there were seven arts that freemen pursued the practice of: grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy. Universities educated elite men in these practices and in the era of the Enlightenment more disciplines were added. Language, literature, religion, philosophy, the classics, visual and performing arts expanded the curriculum in what came to be known as the humanities. The humanities are those disciplines which study the human condition and that do so in ways that are investigative and speculative, as opposed to empirical, which is the domain of the natural sciences. Some of my friends, after CEGEP, wound up in the liberal arts program at McGill University, which was called “Humanistic Studies.” A humanist is a person schooled in the humanities—language, literature, religion, philosophy, the classics, visual and performing arts—a person inspired by the study and celebration of the human condition. A humanist, says George Santayana, is a person “saturated by the humanities.” Humanism is not a doctrine, he says, but an achievement. Liberal, from the Latin liberalis, meaning, “Appropriate for free men.” Liberal, from the Latin liber, meaning “free.” Our words liberty and liberation also have their roots here: freedom. The freedom to decide for one’s self what to think, the freedom from coercion in matters of thought and expression, the freedom to browse books in the library and hold them in your hand and decide whether or not to read them. The cornerstone of liberalism, whether it be political liberalism or religious liberalism, is this freedom, this individual liberty. You will recall that liberalism is the ideology of the modern Enlightenment, the rationalist and anti-monarchical movements of eighteenth century Europe. The class of city-dwellers, who were merchants and traders, rather than aristocracy or peasants, emerged as the medieval feudal system broke down. This class of people, who came to be known as bourgeois, from the French word for “city dweller” (think borough or burgher), demanded the freedom to trade unencumbered and with it the freedom from all forms of despotism, monarchy, clericalism. Political liberalism sought civil liberties for individuals, government that ruled based on a contractual consent of the people, a social system of free individuals voluntarily cooperating with other free individuals. Thus was born modern democracy and with it “free market” capitalism and in this changed and changing worldview, religious liberalism. Religious liberalism, too, values the individual and the individual’s ability and responsibility to make his or her own choices. Conscience and reason are hallmarks of liberalism in religion: an individual must never assent to belief in a creed or dogma that he or she cannot in good conscience go along with, using his or her powers of reasoning to sift through the wheat and the chaff of religious ideas, keeping what makes sense to him or her individually and discarding the rest. Religious liberalism celebrates the human person’s autonomy and the person’s autonomous reasoning powers. Ideas can be accepted or rejected based on their inherent ethics and reasonableness and not simply accepted because they are handed down from upon high from an historic authority. Authority is located within. Paralleling liberal ideas in the political sphere, in which authority shifted from kings who ruled by divine right to individuals who ruled by their rational choice of who should govern them, so too religious authority shifted. New structures of church governance were formed, such as congregationalism, which stated there is no church but the local congregation, with no outside authorities to govern over it. The liberal spirit in religion cherishes fresh thought and scholarly inquiry. The liberal spirit in religion celebrates thinking and learning for their own sake, for the sake of the free soul’s edification, the free mind’s expansion. The liberal spirit in religion is not constrained by tradition, but is informed and shaped by tradition, and free to move beyond tradition if necessary, free to move within tradition creatively if desired. The liberal spirit in religion is a seeking spirit. Unitarianism has long embodied the liberal spirit in religion; indeed throughout the history of modernity it was the defining embodiment of it. When Unitarianism began on this continent, it was not as a sect or denomination, but rather as a movement, a style. It was a movement within the established Protestant churches of New England, a liberalizing style of Christianity. The original spokesmen for the movement were not at all interested in launching a separate denomination. They were interested in breathing a spirit of freedom and broadmindedness into the Protestant Christianity of their day. When the American Unitarian Association was founded in 1825, it was not as a denominational body but rather an organization devoted to the spread of liberal Christian ideas, and the supplying of qualified liberal ministers to pulpits that sought them. Today, our Unitarian Universalist movement and congregations represent a broader diversity of theological worldviews. As the main stream of twentieth century Unitarianism moved further and more decisively away from Christian faith, the consensus that remained was no longer a theological one, but rather a commitment to individual freedom of conscience in religion. The individual’s free and disciplined search for truth is the sine qua non of contemporary Unitarian Universalism. There are Unitarian Universalist congregations where it is understood that being “liberal in religion” simply means that those who are politically liberal go to the same church. This is especially true in those parts of the continent that are politically conservative. I have met quite a few Unitarian Universalists whose understanding of our movement does not distinguish between politics and religion. When they say they are liberal, they mean politically liberal, left of center with liberal views on social issues. While there is certainly a connection between commitments to freedom in both society and religion, something is lost when we don’t remember the authentic religious spirit that has enlivened our liberal movement for so long. Today, whatever our personal theologies or worldviews or politics, the animating spirit within each of them is an openness, an openness to new truth, to new understanding. And open to each other and the world. No Unitarian Universalist’s individual worldview or theology is closed off, fixed upon an unchanging and rigid creed. I think this is hard for many Unitarian Universalists to understand when they encounter other Unitarian Universalists who walk a particular path or affirm certain truths. Which leads us to the crux of what it means to be a religious liberal, of what our liberal religion is all about. Liberal is defined as meaning ample, abundant, giving freely, generous, not sparing. Liberality, the dictionary tells us, means: “generosity; respect for political, moral, or religious views which one does not agree with.” To be a religious liberal is to be generous toward those who do not hold our own views. To be a religious liberal is to practice generosity, to create a community of abundance, a wealth of differing perspectives and backgrounds. Being liberal means being open-minded, broad-minded, not prejudiced in advance against certain ideas or people. It doesn’t mean you have to accept everything or believe everything. Ours is a thinking religion, and thoughtfulness is something we value as we discern for ourselves what we think is true. But thoughtfulness is also a value in our relationships with one another. Actions can be thoughtful, too, like acts of kindness and care and concern. It is possible to be thoughtful toward the person who does not believe as you do; to be generous; to be liberal. Religious liberalism. We’ve considered liberality and being liberal in spirit. I wonder what it means for us to be religious. Liberal, as we’ve noted, comes from the Latin word for free; religious comes from the Latin word for bonded, connected, tied together. Words like ligature and ligament have the same root, connective tissue binding together. Re-ligio, then, is to reconnect. In the heart of who we are as a community is both freedom and connection. There are some inherent contradictions in religious liberalism, tensions that we will never resolve. Liberalism asserts that each individual is free, and freedom of conscience, freedom of thought, are cornerstones of religious liberalism. At the same time, however, there is a simultaneous need for community, for connection, for relationship. We all want to be free to pursue our own truth–together. We each want to be free individuals–together. We try to be a community of people going in their own spiritual and philosophical direction. Freedom and connection, liberty and relation: we find ourselves in the gravitational pull of both freedom and connection, liberty and relation. Our task is to live graciously in this tension. Our calling is not only to embody the liberal spirit that cherishes fresh thought and scholarly inquiry, but that also is generous to others. Our task is not only to celebrate thinking and learning for their own sake, for the sake of the free soul’s edification, the free mind’s expansion, but to live charitably toward others. Our task is to practice a generosity of spirit with those whose views differ from ours, not to confine others to our own stereotypes about them. Our task is to practice an openness of spirit with those whose views differ from ours, for in so doing we ourselves might be given new insight, new understanding. Our task is to cultivate a mind and heart for learning something new, to cultivate a mind and heart for inquiry, openness, generosity. Our calling as a faith community devoted to liberal religious witness is to be a school of the spirit, a classroom and workshop in the arts of liberalism. The disciplines of creating a free mind and open heart are what we practice here. A disciplined search for truth and meaning is the road to freedom, the way to freedom. A broad knowledge is essential to walk this way to freedom. Indeed, it is a broad way of life and not a narrow one. The point of such disciplines is a broadening of the mind, a broadening of the heart, a cultivation within the self of inquiry, openness, generosity and no small measure of honesty. The point of such disciplines is broad-mindedness and open heartedness, to the end that we create a community at home in the tensions of being different from one another and related to one another. Our body politic and civic discourse is in sore need of openness, inquiry, curiosity. These are essential values to we who form liberal religious communities; this is our essential witness to the world. Our spirit is a generous spirit, calling diverse people to be in relationship to one another. Our generous way of relation, holding in tension the free individual’s connection to others, holding in tension freedom and community, can be an example for a divided nation, a divided family, a tension-filled workplace. The generosity of spirit that is our legacy and witness can be a balm for the divisions we see in our world.
The Church of No Offense
A couple of years ago, I was considering coming to a certain church to do ministry with the congregation there. I came to the town to visit for a weekend, look at places to live, and speak with the committee that was searching for a minister. It was an established church in a lovely small town. I was shown around town by various members of the committee and at one point, walking around town, one began telling me the story of how he had come to this church.
“My partner and I were new in town,” he said. “And we didn’t know anybody in the area and we wanted to get better connected in the community. We figured joining a church was a really good way to start networking. So we looked around and decided on the Unitarian Universalist church in town because of them all, it was the least offensive.” I enjoyed his frankness. This thoughtful man was a leader in his congregation, had found a home there. People join congregations for all kinds of reasons–advantageous business networking, finding a date, finding a job, developing a real estate practice. These are some of the real, practical reasons that people affiliate with communities of faith. They’re no better or worse than wanting a religious education for one’s children, exploring questions of meaning, comforting during a time of transition.
And the fact that this congregation didn’t promulgate anything he and his partner found offensive was the clincher. No hellfire and brimstone, no judging LGBT people negatively, no political positions, no onerous requirements intellectually, financially, or in any other way.
All kinds of people, in all kinds of conditions gather together in congregations for all kinds of reasons.
We need different things from church at different times in our lives–comfort, guidance, edification, challenge. When a local congregation is at its best, it is offering these disparate things simultaneously through its programs–its ministries–and its worship. We are also called upon to offer different things to our co-congregants and the institution at different times.
Sometimes, the church is a refuge, a haven, to gather in the brokenhearted and despairing. We gather for healing, to be strengthened, to be renewed in hope, to be reminded of our deepest convictions. Ultimately, we are gathered in this way in order to be sent back to the world. Our broken hearts are offered balm in order to go back to a world (a workplace, a family, a neighborhood, a nation) strengthened if not completely made whole. We are offered hope and courage in order to return to a world in which we strive to create justice and peace and a sustainable future for the planet.
There are plenty of Unitarian Universalists who have absolutely no interest in mission or outreach, let alone evangelism, and don’t think their congregation ought to be mission-driven. The purpose of the church, for these folks, is to gather the likeminded together for comfort and solidarity. Or simply gather the likeminded together. The shadow possibility of this, however, is that such congregations become ingrown, inwardly focused clubs that focus only on participants’ perceived needs and wants. If we gather together for the sake of gathering together, without a sense that we have work to do on ourselves or in the world to which our faith sends us, we risk ossifying into a cozy self-congratulatory group of likeminded people that is guarded, suspicious of others, and openly derisive of those who are not like us. Hardly in keeping with the liberal spirit.
There are also plenty who do not want to do or say anything that will offend anyone. Sermons that convict (to use an old Calvinist expression) are abandoned in favor of talks full of information or ideas that most will agree with. Certain words and expressions are informally (or explicitly) banned–you know, like God or sin or death or repentance–effectively blotting out exploration of major religious concepts. And nothing that will challenge anyone should be done or said or imagined. Because that might offend.
It is fine to offer respite to those working the vineyards of liberal political causes and social change movements, but respite cannot be the only purpose of a liberal religious faith community. Gathering together for the sake of creating a congenial environment for oneself is fine, but cannot stop there if we are talking about a church. I believe we need to also be upheld and challenged by the liberal gospel and so compelled by it to go make a difference for it in the world.
The way I see it, the church exists for gathering, supporting and sending its constituent members. All three. When one of these gestures is lacking, something vital is missing.
Supporting or upholding members of a liberal religious community, as I see it, is in part to sort out not only how we are going to be the best of who we are called to be as individuals, adequately equipping participants for a robust ethical and spiritual life, but also discerning what repercussions our ethics and spirituality must have beyond ourselves. Going deeper ultimately equips us for going farther. The search for truth and meaning produces results which require something of us: how am I going to live my life in the light of this truth and meaning? What demands of me does this make on how my life and my society are to be ordered? Our congregations exist to help deepen our spiritual and ethical strength, renew our commitment to basic liberal principles. And it is not for our own sake only, but for the sake of a world (household, neighborhood, city, nation) that needs what we have to offer.
Not only does a liberal religious community empower and inspire its participants, sending them to the world, but our congregations at their best offer spaces for reflection and contemplation upon one’s experiences of tending the vineyards of a broken and hurting world. Or just living a life. We offer analysis in the light of faith for what we have experienced in our workaday world. Transformation and transcendence can and frequently do occur when a person is engaged in mission outside the confines of the church. The local gathered community offers a context in which to make sense of those experiences. It’s an interpretive circle of action and reflection, not only being sent but also arriving (wounded, inspired, vexed). Making sense out of our experience–making meaning of what we do in our day-to-day lives–is the task of theological reflection and is a discipline of the local church.
Theological reflection among us is hardly the memorization and study of a common catechesis–a body of approved doctrines. Saying we need more theological depth–more soul–in no way means “We all have to believe the same doctrines.” Peacebang puts it this way: “And I want someday for those of us who want to cultivate reverence, humility and soul to stop being categorized and dismissed as pissed off Christians who want to take over the UUA.” Amen!
Not everybody who is a member of a congregation is interested in theological reflection, developing a spiritual practice or pondering the meaning of life. That’s as it should be. These are not for everybody. There are also times in our journeys when we need them more than others. But for those who are looking for something more, a church ought to be offering it.
Signing up for an inoffensive club that has benefits for oneself can’t be the final word in what it means to be a community of faith.
The Liberal Church Finding Its Mission: It’s Not About You
Recently, a fellow who does some work for my congregation was in the building. We had never met before, and so we introduced ourselves and chatted for a while in the church office. At one point he said to me, “You know, I should tell you this story. I have a thirteen-year-old son who has been asking a lot of religious questions lately. I was raised Catholic, but we’re not involved at all, and haven’t really given him a religious education. One day, my son was with me in the car when we drove by another Unitarian Universalist church. He asked me, because he knew that I had done some work for them, what kind of a church it was. When I told him, he asked what Unitarian Universalists believe. So I told him, ‘Well they don’t really believe anything specific. It’s a religion where whatever you think or believe or feel is what the religion is all about.’ And my son said, ‘That’s the kind of church I want to go to!’” And the fellow chuckled and we had some pleasantries about his teenager being a Unitarian Universalist without knowing it.
But my pleasant façade betrayed the bomb that had just gone off in my head. Oh dear God, it’s true. We have institutionalized narcissism. Here was a person that was not involved in a Unitarian Universalist church, and yet knew something about us. As an outsider, the message he received about what we stand for is: It’s about whatever you want it to be about. It’s all about you.
This man did not invent this perception of Unitarian Universalism. He got it from somewhere. He got it from us. It could be posited that many thoughtful UUs talked to him about our creedless religion, our covenanted communities in which one is free to search for truth and meaning. It’s likely that thoughtful UUs explained being gathered around basic principles and values rather than beliefs and doctrines. But what he heard was: We don’t believe anything. We’re just making this stuff up as we go along to suit ourselves. Of course, it’s also possible that this is precisely what he was told.
There’s a difference between a free and disciplined search for truth and meaning, unencumbered by doctrine and “a religion that’s all about you and whatever you want.” How does, “You are responsible for discerning your spiritual path” become “Whatever you think, believe, or feel is what the religion is”? How did we become the religion that puts its faith in you (to quote an ill-conceived denominational slogan)?
A good deal of this slippage comes from a lack of opportunities for faith formation in our congregations, especially among adults. A disciplined search for truth and meaning takes effort; it takes discipline. Being unencumbered by doctrine ought not imply that doctrine is not examined for the truth it may contain. Indeed, not being constrained by creedal formulations seems to have been translated into an abandonment of theological reflection altogether. We offer a non-dogmatic approach and context to religious inquiry without equipping members of our communities for the search. Discerning your spiritual path is difficult without tools, without support.
Faith formation is not simply adult religious education. Run a couple of classes on building your own theology and spiritual practice and then you’re done. Formation involves worship and preaching, mission work and governance. It’s the work of the entire enterprise of being church together. It takes place collectively, mutually as well as individually. We are also formed as people of faith in conversation with the tradition, with our historic testimonies. The tradition speaks to us and we respond. We respond lovingly, critically, thoughtfully–but recognize that our historic context has a voice shaping today’s conversation about who we are and what we’re about.
And it takes discipline. It is telling, I think, that the 1961 principles of the newly formed Unitarian Universalist Association speak of a “free and disciplined search for truth and meaning” and the statement’s revised 1980s version is, “a free and responsible search.” I also find it telling how Unitarian Universalists like to speak, when they do at all, of “spiritual practices,” but almost never “spiritual disciplines.” Being together in community takes discipline and effort. I think we have become lazy and simply tell each other, “You do your thing, and I’ll do mine. You have your spiritual practice and I have my book discussion group. Whatever.”
Engaging one another in a spirit of curiosity, openness and humility, with the recognition that one might be mistaken, or one’s own perspective might be partial, is the opposite of institutionalized self-involvement. The practice of hospitality is the antidote to self-centeredness. The ever-present narcissism enshrined in our congregations spawns entitlement and complaint rather than engagement and curiosity because, well, you’re not giving me what I want!
There is a contradiction inherent in liberal religion. We are free, autonomous individuals in community with one another. Tension exists between freedom and connection, autonomy and community. There is no getting around it. Our calling is to live gracefully in that tension, holding them with equanimity, without being weighted as we are now toward individual freedom and autonomy. Our capacity for being a transformative presence in the world is diminished when we neglect the communal, connected, covenanted aspect of our life together and when we focus primarily on the individual and their freedom. Our institutions suffer.
When my congregation was in search for a new minister, they conducted a workshop on welcoming their new settled clergyperson with the district executive. When she asked, “What is the minister’s primary job,” somebody answered, “To make us happy.” “To serve our needs,” somebody else chimed in. The DE replied, “Guess what? The minister’s job is not to make you happy. The minister’s job is to serve the mission of the church.” There was a sharp intake of breath in the room. That moment was such a shock of recognition that the people who were there remember it still. It’s not all about me. It’s not all about my needs.
At church these days, and in our movement more broadly, we are having conversation about mission. What are we for? What are we called to do? Where are we being sent? In a collection of individuals, each on their own responsible search, these questions are impossible to answer. There is no “we.” There is no shared identity, let alone shared sense of purpose or vocation.
I am skeptical about Unitarian Universalism ever becoming the sort of missional religious movement that some of my colleagues and friends are imagining. A group of like-minded individuals doing community service together with no theology, no discerned sense of vocation, is not a faith community; it’s the Rotary Club. A group of people dedicated to liberal ideals with no (perhaps I should say) shared theology, shared sense of vocation is not a church. It’s a political club. The National Lesbian and Gay Task Force do a fine job of fighting for LGBT equality. Why would I join a church to do that? The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee is doing terrific work (as are other organizations) defending the rights and freedoms of immigrants. I support the ADC. Why would I join a church to do that? Local service agencies alleviate suffering of all kinds and use my volunteer time. Why would I join a church for that?
Religious liberals, both within our movement and beyond it, dropped theology in favor of social action in the twentieth century. We are compelled to do social justice work, but we have little or no understanding of why this is religious. To base whole congregations around this kind of mission work without a clearly articulated theology is to reinvent the Rotary Club for religiously inclined political liberals. And a clearly articulated theology of social ministry is not possible as long as “theology” is whatever individuals happen to believe, think, or feel at any given moment.
Inasmuch as Unitarian Universalist communities continue to neglect discernment, theology, discipline, spiritual practice, faith formation, vocation and engagement with our historic testimonies and tradition, we will never be a missional religious movement. As long as we are known as the church of individual seekers we will never have the kind of impact that a missional religion has on transforming the world. It should go without saying that the chronically self-involved have no interest in serving the needs of others.
What would it take for us to be known in the wider community for some of the traits, characteristics and perspectives we hold in common and that we continue to share with our historic legacy? What would it take for our communal calling as a faith community to become as important as our much-vaunted individual spiritual journeys?
What would it take for a parent, in the car with their thirteen year old, to be able to say, driving past a Unitarian Universalist meetinghouse, something like: That’s the church where they believe you can hear God talking in nature. Or: That’s the church where they teach religious studies and make you think about what to believe. Or perhaps: That’s the church that says there’s no Hell. As well as: That’s the church that houses homeless people in its building in the winter. That’s the church that helps you recover from addiction.
What would it take for us to be the religion that puts its faith in something larger than you?
What Are We Being Sent to Do?
I was walking along the sidewalk to the gym in downtown Boston the other day. A young man wearing a dark suit, black tie, and large square name badge approached me. I forget what his opening line was to me as we passed, but I knew that he was on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS, or Mormons). I didn’t slow down, but did engage him in conversation. “What do you know about the Mormons?” he asked. I told him that I knew they almost singlehandedly funded Proposition 8 in California, a ballot initiative that revoked the right of same-sex couples to be legally married in the state. Of everything that I know about LDS, this is the thing that most sticks in my craw. Because the church leader demanded it, Mormons across the country saw it as their religious duty to send money to the anti-gay forces in California. As we know, Prop 8 passed.
“I was too young at the time,” my Mormon proselyte shared, which considering it was only four years ago belied how young he actually was. He handed me a business card with a Web address on it. “Would you like to know more about Jesus or Mormonism?” he asked. “Jesus, yes. Mormonism, no,” I said handing it back to him.
I then explained my conviction that homophobia is inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus. “Well,” he said, his pace slowing as he dropped back, “Jesus believed in standing up for what he believed in.”
I don’t begrudge Unitarian Universalists for not sending our 18-year-olds to the world to convert others to our way of doing religion. But I do wonder: Do religious liberals have any sense of being sent to the world in order to do something? What is our work to do outside of the walls of our church? Is church a place we visit on Sunday morning that has nothing to do with our Monday morning? Are we formed in some way by an essential message, or core values, that shape all of what we do within and outside the congregation?
Churches that are thriving are not necessarily the ones with conservative theologies or who proselytize strangers. Churches that are thriving are ones that have a strong sense of identity and mission, of knowing who they are and what they do. Declining churches characterize themselves as “a big family;” thriving churches describe themselves as “a moral beacon in our community.” Declining churches wait for people to find them; thriving churches are known in their communities for who they are and what they stand for and they attract people. A church’s mission is so much more than its mission statement: it’s a sense of purpose, focus, and vocation.
The word mission, of course, is rooted in being sent. What are we religious liberals sent to do?
As I reached the door of the gym after my encounter with the young missionary, a breathless woman caught up with me. She had a twinkle in her eye. She said, “I just wanted to tell you that you made my week. I saw you talking with that Mormon kid and the only snippet of your conversation I heard made me laugh out loud. All I heard you say was, ‘Jesus, yes, Mormonism, no.’ That would be a great bumper sticker!” I laughed.
Or a great sermon…
Our Heart’s Content: Anti-Consumerism as Spiritual Discipline
One early December weekend, I conducted an experiment. I had just led a group at the church I was serving at the time in a program called “Unplugging the Christmas Machine.” We had examined the bloated, overfed nature of this holiday, and sought together ways of celebrating December holidays that nurtured our souls. And that didn’t depend on the giving and receiving of things. I had also just marked the occasion of Buy Nothing Day. This is a campaign founded by Vancouver-based Adbusters magazine for a one-day consumer strike on the busiest shopping day in the United States—the day after Thanksgiving. A number of us passed out leaflets on Newbury Street, and sang ribald, anti-consumerist versions of Christmas carols.
In my personal spiritual discipline of Sabbath-keeping, I was considering adding the traditional Jewish injunction against spending money on the Sabbath. And so I was asking, What does it mean to me to spend money? Why do I buy the things I buy?
My experiment was to walk through downtown Boston in the midst of the Christmas frenzy, without a wallet, without any cash, without my credit card. As I was jostled along the crowded streets, moving among throngs of shoppers in the department stores and malls, I developed an odd sense of displacement. It was almost as if I was an alien from another planet, a visitor from another culture. The brilliantly lit world of things, the shiny realm of objects that unfolded around me seemed foreign. What was going on here? The pull of attraction toward this world of things, the tug toward buying them, the desire to be part of this crazy Christmas marketplace fantasy all began to unravel.
My intent was to observe, observe what I saw around me, and observe what I saw within me. For despite my Buy Nothing posturing, I was as susceptible as anybody else to the wiles of compulsive giving and getting. I was as prone as anybody to impulsive purchases and spending beyond my means. Like many other North Americans, I often used shopping as a comfort, a recreation, a sport. Like many North Americans, I often found myself buying things I didn’t need, buying things on credit, and buying things I didn’t need on credit. And so here I was, without a wallet in the busy world of Saturday Christmas shopping, asking, What does it mean to me to spend money? What is the impetus, the impulse behind such behaviors, I wondered, in myself and others. How did it come about that habits of spending and getting came to define us, how did it come to mean so much, come to resemble the frenetic mass hysteria I was observing around me?
A monumental shift took place in our culture in the 1920s. Economic forces precipitated this cultural shift. Business was recreating North American society. Advertising was a relatively new phenomenon, as a whole slew of new goods were being made available in the late nineteenth century. Use electric light bulbs instead of oil lamps! These ads said. Use the telephone instead of mail! Ads convinced people of the efficiency and utility of their products, for the most part merely announcing a product’s availability, and describing its merits. The shift that took place in the 1920s was that advertising no longer focused on the product, but rather on the customer. Advertising alluded to the customer’s inadequacies, and foretold terrible consequences of lost jobs, lost loves, or loss of friends for those not buying the advertised toothbrush, skin cream, mouthwash, manicure aids or labor saving appliances.
And it was a technique that took off. From 1918 to 1929, the amount spent on magazine advertising alone tripled, and that’s not counting the amount spent on newspaper, billboard, and streetcar ads.
What’s more, retailers in the 1920s introduced something called the “installment plan,” buying their goods on credit. The attitudes surrounding debt changed at this time. Previously, North Americans valued frugality and modesty. Debt had been a sign of irresponsibility and was a source of shame. Well, no longer. What was now needed, people were told, to keep the economy going was spending. Thrifty people, the new wisdom dictated, would ruin the economy. The market was flooded in the 1920s with all sorts of things: cigarette lighters, wristwatches, electric appliances, and most of all, automobiles. Things that weren’t always necessities but were talismans of a Modern style of life. If you couldn’t afford these items (and the pressure from advertising told you that you couldn’t afford not to have them) you could buy them on the installment plan. In the United States, sales of radios jumped from $60 million a year in 1922 to $852 million in 1929. In the year 1900 the automobile industry manufactured 4000 cars; in 1929 production was at 4 800 000. Not surprisingly, ¾ of radios and three out of every five automobiles were bought on credit.
The new economic paradigm saw ever expanding markets, more and more goods and services. And at the heart of this economy, the engine driving it all, a new sort of person: the never satisfied consumer.
Gone were the days of saving, reusing, and the frugal expenditure of personal resources. The new personality demanded by the new economic paradigm was one who despised work—but loves to be entertained; one who shouldn’t bother learning—it’s easy to buy ready-made products and services; one who could be careless and wasteful—you could always buy another one; one who couldn’t stand to have something old or outmoded; one who thought first and foremost of their own satisfaction, delight, and fulfillment—before all else.
One’s sense of one’s self, one’s purpose and meaning were associated with the consumption of goods. One’s sense of purpose and meaning were no longer associated with any transcendent values offered by religion. Consuming was the new religion in this respect. Successful businessmen such as Henry Ford were referred to in the press as the new spiritual leaders. President Calvin Coolidge was quoted as saying that the factory was the new temple and the worker the new devotee who worshipped there. Legendary ad man Bruce Barton was the son of a preacher and sought to fill his ads with uplifting messages. In 1923, Barton noted that the role of advertising was to help corporations find their soul.
At the very least, corporations needed to have personalities. And so we have the old fashioned Quaker and his oats. We have Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima, like members of our family. Trusted. Related to us. As factory production became more and more universal, it became important to distinguish your product from the manufactured sameness of everybody else’s. And so branding become more important, establishing positive associations with your brand name. Meaning and value needed to be wedded to your brand name. And what’s more a hunger for meaning and value instilled in the people you would then sell it to.
Which leads into the next great economic shift in our culture, one that took place in the 1980s when the production of things gave way to the production of images of things. Corporations unloaded their manufacturing to contractors. Due to liberalized trade laws, these contractors were mostly overseas, where more lax environmental and labor laws kept costs even lower. Many North American corporations are now no longer in the business of manufacturing, but of marketing. When Philip Morris, the tobacco company, purchased Kraft in 1988, they paid six times what the company was worth on paper. The name Kraft was worth something, and this buyout is seen as a watershed. This was the first time a premium dollar value was associated with a brand name.
Branding and advertising have become more and more important, as companies vie for our loyalty. Advertising, including corporate sponsorships, is now ubiquitous as companies try their best to associate their brand name with the things that we value.
More than ever before, the heart of this way of life is the never satisfied consumer. Never satisfied, always needing something. Never satisfied, always lacking. Never satisfied, always buying. The need for personal meaning and personal power (being “cool”) supplied through acquiring consumer goods.
And so I walk through downtown Boston in the early winter, jostled along the crowded streets, moving among throngs of shoppers in the department stores and malls. The brilliantly lit world of things, the shiny realm of objects that unfolds around me, begins to seem grotesque, exaggerated, funny. I have bought things in these stores, things I needed even. I have come to these places time and again, to participate in a world of fantasy. All around me is the tug of things and the images of things and the meanings of the images and of the things themselves. Happiness. Joy. Satisfaction. Love. Togetherness. Desirability. Worthiness. Are these the things that we are all shopping for?
For those of us who, like myself, see the dangers of the ever-expanding market, we need to come back to its heart, the never-satisfied consumer, and to the heart of the never satisfied consumer. What are the sources of your dissatisfaction? What are the sources of your happiness? This is essential work in developing an economy of sustainability. This is the essential work of resisting the manipulations of advertising. This is essentially spiritual work.
An American reporter once asked Gandhi to summarize his life philosophy in three words. Gandhi replied: “Renounce and enjoy!”
Renounce and enjoy. I think we have all heard the “renounce” message. I personally like many of the things I own. I’m not quite ready to give everything up. But there are limits, and limit setting can actually be a very liberating thing. I personally have adopted something from the book The Circle of Simplicity by Cecile Andrews. It is a shopping list of sorts, only it’s a list of questions or what a Quaker might call queries: Do I really need this? Can I buy it used? Can I rent or borrow it? Why do I want to own this? There are other things to consider: Can it be easily repaired or recycled? How were the people who made it treated? Is it over-packaged? But the essential query is, “Why do I want to own this?”
I have learned about setting limits, and sometimes renouncing things, from my practice of Sabbath keeping, of keeping a time set apart for not working, for not thinking or worrying about work. After my walk through the December malls of Boston, I added a time set apart for not spending any money. I have found from that experience and from my keeping a Sabbath, I have come to the question, “Why do I want to own this?” with much more honesty, curiosity, and integrity. Why do I want to own this? What do I think this thing will give me? Can I give that to myself some other way?
Renounce and enjoy. Enjoying your things becomes a lot easier when you have considered them carefully. You own things because there is some need or want for it that you have identified. This frees you to enjoy your things. One of the feelings that the never satisfied consumer thrives on is deprivation. If you feel like you are being deprived, how long is any new behavior going to last? Limiting your acquisitions, your purchases, your things, to what you really want or need to own by necessity means looking within. It is an act of discernment. You will find yourself surrounded by what you truly need and want. And that is what Gandhi meant by enjoy. Renounce what you don’t truly need or really want and enjoy what you do have.
“Give me neither poverty nor riches,” says the Book of Proverbs, “but only enough.” Deciding to want what we have is a move toward having enough. Deciding to enjoy what we have is a move toward having enough. Sometimes, of course, some of us may not have enough. We may not have enough money to pay the rent, enough food to feed our families, enough self-esteem to act in our own best interest. These are real, legitimate needs. But the dissatisfied heart cries out impulsively and we need to learn to discern between what we need and what we want. When the dissatisfied heart cries out for more, we need to know when we have enough. That we are enough.
The voice inside that says, “I’m not thin enough. I’m not smart enough. I’m not hip enough. I’m not young enough. I’m not good enough” is not the voice of your best interest. When your wisest and truest self speaks, the voice says, You are enough.
How much larger this is than habits of getting and spending! In some ways, it comes down to our basic orientation toward the universe. Do I believe this life is abundant, that there is enough for me and others, that we are blessed with plenty? Or do I believe that there isn’t enough, and act out of that sense of scarcity?
Renounce and enjoy. If limit setting doesn’t free you to enjoy the abundance of life, but rather makes you feel deprived, there’s no point. Feelings of deprivation only agitate the dissatisfied, hungry heart. Feeling deprived is not enjoyable. There is no point to living a more simple life if it brings you no joy. The good news is, that more and more people like you are discovering that having a house cluttered with unused and unnecessary things is not enjoyable.
Renounce what you don’t truly need or really want and enjoy what you do have.
Renounce the voice that says you are not enough and enjoy the abundance of a gift-giving universe.
My Wish For Your Thanksgiving Meal
We need food to live. This is a basic fact of human existence. To eat is to live. When we share food, when we share a meal, we are in some essential way, sharing life. We offer and receive the very substance of life. And it is not just our own life that food nurtures, but our common, communal life, the life of families, communities, and cultures. When we want to connect with others, we seldom ask them to meet us in a quiet place where we can speak undisturbed, but rather say, “Let’s do lunch!” We connect with others around this basic need. When we want to share our lives with others, we eat together.
A shared meal is a doorway into our common life, as family and friends, as guests and hosts, as a community. We commune with one another and the forces of life that sustain us. The community-forming power of potlucks and collective kitchens, community gardens and farmer’s markets, Thanksgiving dinner and ordinary family suppers, all call us out of isolation and into communion. Food brings us together.
My prayer for our culture is for more of us to restore conviviality to our habits of cooking and eating. Convivial—a word that signifies shared life—does not describe rushed meals eaten alone between work and soccer and errands and school. Nor does it describe any meal that is delivered to you through your car window. Convenience is huge in our hurried, overscheduled lives. In the name of convenience, food now has more to do with chemistry and mass production than community, relations or even pleasure. Americans have come to think of food only in its component parts—calories and carbohydrates, sodium and saturated fats. But food is not just for the body, a substance made up of nutrients that we ingest for the proper functioning of the mechanism of our body. Food is also for the mind and spirit and forming bonds with others. Convenience in preparing meals has trumped delight and pleasure in cooking and consuming food. In all of this, something has been lost. There is no soul, no enchantment, in such fare.
What has been lost can be restored when couples and families spend time in the kitchen cooking together. Having the children help plan, prepare, cook and serve, meals or parts of meals shows them they are valued, they are valued members of your household. Gardening together, shopping together at the farmers’ market, discovering what to do with all the produce in your CSA share, learning how to can and preserve, indeed, simply learning new culinary skills—all invite us in to a celebratory relationship with food, the laborers who grow and produce it, the Earth, and each other.
Some of us, including those of us without spouses or children, are even experimenting with leisurely meals. Savoring each bite with intention and mindfulness, enjoying the tastes and smells and the company, if there is company, can be a joyful way to eat a meal. The art of dining, eating with style and manners, can create an atmosphere of attention and contemplation to our meals.
With care and imagination, all of our meals can be sacred, convivial occasions. Whether we dine alone or with others, every meal can be an occasion to nurture the spirit. The way we set the table, what plates and napkins we use, lighting candles or placing a vase of fresh cut flowers on the table, all create an ambiance that allows the soul to know that its needs are being addressed along with those of the stomach. A pause, a moment before the meal is served, invites us to simply be mindful, thankful. Whether a grace or a blessing is said aloud, whether the pause is filled with words or expectant silence, recognition that life is being celebrated comes.
Even at the everyday table, where the regular plates and cutlery are used, are those not the times when members of the same household gather and tell the story of their day? Isn’t the common life of our families gathered around the kitchen table, the supper table, the everyday meals, that fills our hunger for belonging as well as filling the hunger of our bodies? In my household growing up, attendance at dinner nightly was not optional. We had to be at the dinner table at six o’clock no matter what. Among other things, this practice instilled in me a sense of stability, belonging, relationship, and love.
I have often asked my mother for recipes, recipes of things she made when I was growing up that I needed as an adult to comfort me, to call up the memory of who I am. With the recipes come memories of my origins, stories about the old country, family narratives. Mixed in with the techniques of how to cook these recipes are stories of my grandmothers, their lives and kitchens, their hardships and triumphs. Even when I made those recipes and ate them alone, my home fragrant with the culinary smells of my ancestors, I felt connected, in communion with my family and my ethnic heritage.
My wish for all of us this Thanksgiving and in the days ahead, is for conviviality to grace our meals, for all of our meals to become occasions for giving thanks, for mindful eating, for everyday feasts. May we slow down enough to make each meal an expression of the best of who we are, as individuals, as families and households. May our dining together and alone be a source of comfort, wholeness and peace for ourselves, for our communities, and for our planet. May each meal be a celebration, every mouthful a Eucharistic feast, every bite a taste of the world to come, a world in which hunger and want, injustice and injury are no more.
Occupy Main Street
Police removed Occupy Wall Street protesters from Liberty Square (aka Zuccotti Park) at one o’clock this morning. This evening, they have returned, as determined as ever to inhabit the space once again.
With winter approaching, many have wondered what those who are staying camped out in public squares as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement are going to do next. Kalle Lasn, whose original call for a Tahrir Square equivalence in lower Manhattan last July sparked the movement, yesterday called for the movement to declare victory, have a huge celebration and then move indoors. In a “tactical briefing,” he says that after the global victory party:
Then we clean up, scale back and most of us go indoors while the die-hards hold the camps. We use the winter to brainstorm, network, build momentum so that we may emerge rejuvenated with fresh tactics, philosophies, and a myriad [number of] projects ready to rumble next Spring.
If the movement becomes entirely about the parks protesters are occupying, along with all the issues that come with being an open, urban encampment of diverse people creating community together, and police actions against them, then something will have been lost. Those who oppose Occupy Wall Street would like the news stories to remain about the drug use and deaths, trumped up sanitation and safety issues, and whether the First Amendment of the US Constitution protects camping as free speech. They want to keep attention diverted from the issues of social inequities and economic injustice and focused instead on how “unsavory” the protesters are.
Whatever the General Assemblies in various cities decide, I think it’s time to move into a next phase of this social change effort. Call it “Occupy Main Street.” A sustained protest movement in suburbs and small towns as well as in urban centers could sustain the movement through the winter and through police repression. Marches and rallies can take place in those squares where encampments once stood, or are being inhabited by the faithful remnant. And they can take place in towns across the country.
I appreciate that many groups working on issues of economic justice have been invigorated by the energy of the Occupy Wall Street movement. But I personally would hate to see this movement co-opted by MoveOn.org or the Democratic Party or even the labor movement. Its vibrancy has been in its obstinate refusal to play by the rules of politics as usual, transgressing all of the expectations people have (leaders, demands, spokespeople). It chose exactly the right target: Wall Street. And it chose exactly the right tactic: outraged protest. I really would hate this movement to go home and start writing letters to the editor or raising money for sympathetic politicians’ election campaigns. So I’m hoping that’s not what the next phase looks like, not entirely. This is essentially about protest and direct action.
At a recent event at my church, we were having a discussion about the Occupy Wall Street movement. Conversation quickly turned from material and moral support for Occupy Boston toward actions we could be taking in our town, a rather tony suburb. Should we leaflet customers going into banks? Should we picket Bank of America? How difficult will it be for all of those people who are not camping out, but who support the cause, to start nonviolent direct action campaigns in the places where they are? I’m thinking: boycotts, picket lines, rallies, teach-ins… pressing for change in our tax system, regulation of Wall Street, federal spending, fair elections, the “personhood” of corporations and their undue influence on government. Keeping it in the streets, even if we’re not (all) camping there. In each of our towns and neighborhoods, we could gather a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to take our democracy back from the corporations and banks as well as the politicians they have bought off. (Oops, a little ACT UP just snuck in there!). And then we would sustain the energy of this protest movement and keep it going until, well, until we win.
As they said tonight at Zuccotti Square: You cannot evict an idea whose time has come.
Another World is Possible: Biblical Visions
When I meet somebody new, one of the first things they inquire about is what I do for a living. When I tell them (I’m a clergyperson), I almost always find myself deep in conversation about religion. They haven’t been to church in a long time, they will tell me right off the bat, and then proceed to defensively list the reasons why. They tell me why the Bible is wrong about certain things, or how Jesus never really existed, or they want my opinions on fasting, the efficacy of prayer, or other spiritual concerns they are having.
What nobody ever says is, “So you’re religious, what do you think about how Wall Street should be regulated?” They never ask if I think the Bible justifies wars of aggression or what my faith teaches me about the morality of greed, violence, and social inequity and what I might therefore think about the financial industry, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or health care reform, poverty or immigration. None of these, to the modern mind, are religious questions. Religion, in our modern day and time, is concerned only with spiritual matters. These are defined as private and relegated to the sphere of private opinion.
The separation of church and state in the United States does not mean that citizens cannot be shaped by their faith traditions. Nor does it mean that citizens will not be motivated by their faith to be involved in the civic life of their community and nation. This is not simply true of those people of faith concerned with denying reproductive rights or marriage equality, but includes progressive, liberal and other folks as well. War is a moral issue. So is poverty. “Values voters” include those of us concerned for the welfare of the most vulnerable people in our society, those who want to protect our environment, those who advocate for equality.
As the progressive evangelical pastor Jim Wallis says, “Faith is always personal, but not private.” There are public consequences to faith, and people of faith have played essential roles in forming social change movements, including the anti-slavery and temperance movements, the civil rights and anti-apartheid movements. Communities of faith are often at the center of local anti-poverty and hunger projects, reaching out into the community in a variety of ways to serve the needs of others.
The ancient world did not divide these up into separate spheres, and indeed saw no division between religious practice and civic society, spirituality and the public sphere, religion and the economic order. It was all of a piece. This is one of the reasons I look to ancient sources of wisdom, including Earth-centered and biblical traditions, which encourage a more holistic view of faith and practice. The Hebrew Scriptures are full of explicit ways in which the most marginal in society are to be protected, ways in which the most needy are to receive their just share of common resources
Here’s my take on the biblical witness.
The biblical narrative is one of a God who redeems a people, who rescues them from oppression. God leads a people, his people, out of slavery, inviting them into an adventure of moving outside the land of slave masters, of kings and emperors, beyond the land of kingdoms and empires. God delivers them out of oppression and into the Promised Land, promising them something better than they have known, a life of abundance in a land that flows with milk and honey. Out of the nations of the world, God forms a new kind of people, a holy nation that will be a guiding light to other peoples.
God makes an agreement with this people, a covenant. God is to be their only king and the Torah, God’s instructions, is to be the guidebook, the manual, to their common life. God instructs his people not only in how he is to be properly worshipped, and other “religious” matters. Much of the Torah is about the social order for this new society, including trade and farming and debt. God cares as much about his people’s material wellbeing as he does their spiritual wholeness. One could honor God, and the covenant with God, through how one treated one’s workers, how one collected a loan or negotiated a debt, how one harvested one’s field in a way that allows the poor to glean from it, how one was honest in business dealings, or how one treated foreigners, widows, orphans. These actions, among many others, were ways of being faithful to God.
The formative event for the ancient Hebrews was the exodus from slavery in Egypt. This liberation story informs the covenant God makes with them, and they with each other. Never again will they be enslaved, and no worker in their social order will be indentured forever. The covenant calls for periodic release of slaves and indentured workers, redistribution of property and cancellation of debts. In some sense, ancient Israel was to be an alternative to the imperial economies, such as the one in Egypt, which relied on domination, expropriation and war. The Hebrew nation was meant to be countercultural, distinct from the nations around it by its practices of freedom, social equity, mutual support and cooperation.
The covenant was enforced through a series of blessings and curses. God will bless the people if they carry out these instructions and abide by the covenant, and God will curse them if they do not. In the 27th and 28th chapters of Deuteronomy, we read a full list of blessings and curses: “Cursed is the man who moves his neighbor’s boundary stone! Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless or the widow! Cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law by not carrying them out!” (27: 17, 19, 26) Abiding by God’s covenant ensures a blessing on one’s barn and kneading trough, one’s crops and livestock.
“The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none.” (28:12)
The Israelites established themselves in the hill country of Palestine. Theirs was a commonwealth of federated agricultural communities. Prophet-leaders, or judges, such as Samuel, interpreted the will of God for the people. The Israelites established themselves as distinct from the nations of the world, including not merely the peculiar holiness codes and dietary laws or the practice of circumcision, but also by not being governed by kings or warlords. God claims leadership of this people who are not to have kings the way other nations have. God is their only king.
Soon enough, however, the Israelites want to be like the other nations. They betray God’s desire for them to be a nation set apart, a nation unlike others in which God alone was ruler. The Israelites want a human king, a king they could see and revere. So they demand of Samuel a king.
“Samuel, do everything they want you to do. I am really the one they have rejected as their king. Ever since the day I rescued my people from Egypt, they have turned from me to worship idols. Now they are turning away from you. Do everything they ask, but warn them and tell them how a king will treat them.” (1 Samuel 8:7-8 CEV)
The people are told what it would mean to have a king: a king would make them his slaves and soldiers, servants of his palaces and of his wars. God reminds them of the things that kings do, with their invasions and war mongering, their domination and conquests, their empire building and centralizing of power, their taxation and military drafts. They want a king anyway. They abandon the vocation they have of being unlike other nations, of being a people ruled by God alone.
What follows is a succession of kings, from Saul to David to Solomon, a long line of kings, some of them good some of them not so good. Wars with the surrounding peoples are fought, a capital city is built and the wandering Ark of the Covenant, representing the presence of God, is installed in an elaborate temple in the capital city, Jerusalem. A priesthood is established and ceremonies of sacrifice take place in the temple.
And yet God’s dream for his people, for his world, his creation, is not forgotten. God does not abandon his vision and plan. God makes sure that for every king, there is a prophet. For every national ruler, there is somebody who reminds the king and the people of God’s vision and plan of a peaceful, cooperative, abundant nation in direct relationship with him. The Hebrew prophets are the counterpoint to the Hebrew kings and lords, God’s way of countering and questioning the habits of nations, conquerors, and empires. The prophetic voice reminds the people of their covenant with God: God will bless, prosper and defend the nation if the people create a society of justice, righteousness and abundance. God withdraws his blessing in the absence of justice. The prophets are constantly calling the people back to faithfulness with God. Come back to the Lord, they say, and do what he wants us to do. Sacrifices and elaborate ceremonies are not what God desires. God desires justice, mercy and intimacy with his people.
The Hebrew prophets were the critics on the margins, the thorn in the side of every ruler. They proclaim justice and a redeemed world of peace and plenty. They pull wild stunts, display signs and wonders, engage in guerrilla theatre. They provoke the status quo. They interrupt business as usual. They call on the people to be unlike other nations—to abandon the ways of war and empire, to abandon unfairness, exploitation, and greed. They call to mind the covenant with God, recalling God’s vision.
Jesus of Nazareth appears as one in line with the Hebrew prophets. Jesus’ basic message is to change one’s thinking, one’s consciousness, for the direct rule of God was arriving and taking place here and now (“repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”) In line with the Hebrew prophets, Jesus was calling the people back to being ruled by God and God alone. In line with the Hebrew prophets, he reminded the rulers and the people of God’s vision and plan of a peaceful, cooperative, abundant nation in direct relationship with God, although, Jesus’s followers universalized this message for all peoples. Jesus was promoting a way of thinking about God and being in relation with God outside the official sacrificial system controlled by the religious elite, the Temple elite that was collaborating with the Roman Empire. This was an unauthorized, unmediated relationship with God. One’s relationship with others was similarly re-imagined. The lines that divide people can be traversed, boundaries that separate people can be crossed – national, ethnic, sexual, religious – these are false divisions that keep people from seeing “that of God” in their neighbor. The change in how one orders one’s thinking and one’s relationships (shaping them around mutuality and cooperation and justice) revolutionizes the social order, the political order.
The metaphors that Jesus used for this transformation, the changed relationships with God and neighbor, were political. He did not talk about the family of God, nor did he talk about the school of God. He talked about the kingdom of God. Having a direct, unmediated, intimate relationship with the living God and the resulting transformations of daily life put oneself in the kingdom of God, God’s order and rule. The titles that Jesus was associated with – messiah, Christ, son of God, savior, lord – are political titles. The language his followers used – kingdom, gospel, assembly (“church”) – were all taken from the Hebrew and Roman political lexicon. This is political language. And it is clear from the gospels that Jesus was proclaiming a new order, a different kingdom, a counter-realm of peace, mutuality, cooperation, justice. My kingdom, Jesus tells the Roman governor, is unlike the world’s kingdoms. If it were like them, my followers would have violently opposed my arrest. (John 18:36) My kingdom is not worldly, not armed, not violent.
Jesus was renewing the covenant of God and the covenantal relationship with neighbor. He reminded his listeners of God’s blessings and curses, reminded them of God’s liberating power to bring them out of slavery and into a life of abundance. His listeners suffered a number of Roman military conquests, and were increasingly taxed and indebted. Not only were they responsible for paying a tithe to the collaborationist Temple elite, and the Roman tribute as well, in Jesus’ lifetime, Galileans also needed to fund the Herod who was now located in their region. They were exhausting their reserves, borrowing from the wealthy at high interest rates, and increasingly at risk for having their property seized or foreclosed upon. Jesus’ blessings and curses speak to the desperate economic circumstances of his listeners and followers. His blessings and curses evoke those in the Torah, and were meant to bring his listeners into line with the original covenant.
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.” (Luke 6:20-26)
Much of what Jesus said and did was around what people do with their resources. Many of Jesus’ parables as well as stories about him involve debt and talents, wage earners and unfair bosses and vineyard laborers, taxes and coins, bread and credit. The prayer Jesus taught his followers to pray petitions for sufficient food and cancellation of debts. He taught first and foremost that all that we have ultimately belongs to God. God is the Creator and we simply stewards of God’s creation. The person who believes that they have created or earned their own wealth displaces God as lord of all. Jesus also teaches that our resources are to be used for the benefit of all, for the common good. He consistently privileges the needy—those who are marginal; he calls us to look to such persons when deciding how to best use our resources. Will our actions increase the livelihood of the least of these? Will our actions help or harm the least of these?
The covenant to which Jesus called his listeners back is one of fundamental concern for the neighbor, for the wellbeing of the entire community, the entire household of God. They are to ensure, as acts of faith, that all have access to the resources needed for an abundant life, and that all fully participate in the life of the community.
It is particularly exasperating to me how much of the political force of the biblical vision of economic justice and peace has been drained of its power by the religious status quo. This is particularly true of Jesus, who was especially confrontational toward the powers that be (one did not get executed by the Romans as a political criminal for anything less). His teachings and actions have been so spiritualized their actual, full-bodied meaning in his cultural and historical context are almost lost. I hope that all who take the Bible seriously (if not literally) are able to read and hear the voice within its pages that calls for the re-ordering of our communal household to embody the divine care and concern for the most needy and vulnerable, that describes a vision of the world redeemed—the world at peace with all peoples living in security and plenty, that calls for a social order marked by mutuality, cooperation, justice, and that sings a joyful song of a new day in which the hungry are filled with good things and rulers are brought down from their thrones. May that day come soon!
Move Your Money From Wall Street to Main Street
A campaign on Facebook and elsewhere has designated November 5, 2011 as “Bank Transfer Day.” Ordinary people are being invited to divest from the Wall Street banks and move their money into local banks and credit unions. The 1% of the US population that controls more than a third of the nation’s wealth will wake up on November 6 and know just how powerful the 99% can be if we act together.
I recently moved my money from one of the big banks to a local one. It’s easy to do:
- Open a new account in your local bank or credit union
- Order cheques and a debit card for your new account
- If you have direct deposit at work (or anywhere else) have your employer redirect your deposit to the new bank. If you pay bills automatically, make sure these all have your new information. Make sure these have all been switched before closing the old account (it can sometimes take a few pay cycles).
- Transfer your money to your new account
- Close the old account, following the procedures of that bank. Don’t just withdraw your money and leave the account open—they will charge you fees for an inactive account, fees for a low balance, fees for just about anything they can think of!
Find a local bank or credit union near you at the Web site of the Move Your Money project. You may want to tell the person at your old bank that assists you why you will no longer be their customer. If there is a segment on their form (there was with mine) for the reason you are closing the account, insist that they fill it out. Better yet, write a letter to the branch manager letting them know that you withdrew your money and why.
Why should you move your money?
- better rates and fewer fees
- more personal service
- keep money in your local community
- increase local economic development—and help create more jobs.
- take a stand in a system that is unfair, raising your voice for economic justice
There was a public outcry after the Bank of America announced it would start charging its customers $5 a month to get access to their own money using a debit card. It seems that the bigger a bank is, the more fees it charges you!
My community bank charges almost no fees. If I get charged an ATM fee, I get it refunded at the end of the month. More and more community banks and credit unions offer ATM surcharge-free networks. On average, community banks and credit unions charge less in fees. I also found the highest interest on my deposits at my local bank and a local credit union. The tellers and even managers at the branches of my community bank all know me by name, know my profession, and ask about my work when they see me. Local banks and credit unions have higher customer satisfaction ratings than the too big to fail banks
The largest five banks held 13% of US deposits in 1994; today they hold 38%. Because these banks were considered “too big to fail,” they got bailed out using taxpayer money, but never became any more accountable to taxpayers after they crashed the economy and sent many taxpayers into the unemployment lines. The reason they were propped up was supposedly to ensure the flow of money. They continue to use ordinary people’s deposits for risky trade investments, not loans to small businesses, which are the engine of the economy. Local banks and credit unions, on the other hand, do a disproportionate amount of lending to small business owners.
The big Wall Street banks will probably continue to use your deposits for risky, unregulated investments. This is precisely how they crashed the economy in 2008. No bank should be “too big to fail.” If the government continues refusing to break up the big bank monopoly, a united front of ordinary people can achieve a similar effect by withdrawing our money from them.
MOVE YOUR MONEY ON OR BEFORE NOVEMBER 5… Guy Fawkes Day!
How You Can Support Occupy Wall Street
There are many ways that you can support the growing Occupy Wall Street movement:
JOIN IT. Visit an occupation site near you. There are currently more than 200 in the United States alone. In Boston come down to Dewey Square, outside of South Station in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Talk to the people who are there. Stay for a General Assembly. Make a sign and carry it. Participate in a protest march (these are frequently announced on the Web site beforehand; check back often). Bring a tent and stay awhile.
START AN OCCUPATION. Figure out what resources you need, learning from what other Occupy groups have done. Gather together friends, family, co-workers, and members of your faith community, labor union or school. Reach out to existing anti-poverty and economic justice groups active in your area. Choose a space. Bring a sleeping bag and/or tent. Call the press. Create a Web site.
Instead of occupying a public square, how about organizing a picket line (outside a Bank of America location, say, or a federal building). How about a rally? How about a vigil? What could your theme be, and could there be costumes, theatre and music?
PROVIDE MATERIAL, MORAL & SPIRITUAL SUPPORT. Many of the Occupy groups have Web sites. Check them out for what they need in terms of supplies. Some of these sites also make it possible to send financial contributions either on line or to a mailbox. Be generous. Check with the group what they need vis-à-vis food. Many Occupy groups have set up kitchen tents, so check in there. Visit and stay awhile, encouraging the protesters who are sleeping there with your positivity. Remind them of the support they have among many ordinary people in the US and around the world. Pray for the protesters, and if possible include them in the “prayers of the people” in your faith community. Hold them in the Light.
TAKE ACTION ON THE ISSUES. Marching, protesting, and camping out in public squares are not for everybody, and that’s okay. Even if it is okay, here are some other things you can do to support this broad-based social change movement:
- MOVE YOUR MONEY. Withdraw your support of Citi, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. You can close all of your accounts with these banks and transfer your money to a local bank or credit union. The too-big-to-fail banks are more interested in continuing the risky (and still unregulated) practices (using your money!) that led to the economic crash. Local banks and credit unions do disproportionately more lending to local small businesses, did not engage in these risky practices, do not give their CEOs millions in bonuses, and have fewer fees. Divest from Wall Street and invest in Main Street!
- CALL YOUR STATE’S ATTORNEY GENERAL. There is mounting proof that the big banks falsified documents, encouraged bad loans, and lied to investors–illegal actions that led to the housing collapse, costing the world economy $7.7 trillion and causing the Great Recession. Now five of these banks—JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Ally Bank—want immunity from prosecution in return for a settlement of just $20 billion. President Obama will give this to his Wall Street cronies, a slap on the wrist and nothing more. This amount is a fraction of what the banks cost American investors and homeowners. But this deal relies on the agreement of state attorneys general. The New York, Minnesota and Nevada attorneys general, are not going along and are conducting their own investigations. Encourage your state’s attorney general not to accept this deal and to investigate and prosecute wrongdoing. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley can be reached at (617) 727-2200.
- BRING THE PUSH TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION TO YOUR COMMUNITY. Help reverse the Citizens United decision of the US Supreme Court, which enshrined the “personhood” of corporations and granted them First Amendment rights of free speech. This has sealed excessive corporate influence over our democracy, allowing corporations and unions to flood political candidates with unseen and unlimited financial contributions.
- CALL AND WRITE YOUR LEGISLATORS. QUESTION POLITICAL CANDIDATES. Who is paying for their election campaign? What are their budget priorities—endless war or Medicare? Will they reinstate Glass-Steagall? Will they give the Securities Exchange Commission more regulatory powers? Do they support the overturn of Citizens United? Will they pass the Fair Elections Now Act? Will they protect social programs from budget cuts? What do they think of Occupy Wall Street?
- SCREEN THE ACADEMY-AWARD™ WINNING DOCUMENTARY “INSIDE JOB” IN YOUR HOME AND COMMUNITY AND DISCUSS IT. Most public libraries have the DVD. What will your audience do about what you have seen, heard and learned? What actions will you take together?
HELP THIS MOVEMENT EVOLVE. The Occupy Wall Street movement is weeks old. Yet in weeks, it has galvanized older social change campaigns and altered the political discourse nationally. What matters most to you about this changing climate? What do you hope for? Be sure to articulate this, and your own reasons for joining or sympathizing with the movement. Talk, write, blog, preach, teach and/or sing about what is important to you. In so doing, you are helping shape the discourse about both the Occupy Wall Street movement and the issues.
SHARE YOUR STORY. Are you struggling to make ends meet? Are you on an ever-running treadmill of overwork just to keep your head above water financially? Do you have a family member in the armed forces deployed overseas? Are you a returning veteran? Are you being foreclosed on? Have you lost your retirement savings? Do you have thousands of dollars in student or other debt? Will you go bankrupt paying or trying to pay medical bills? The Occupy Wall Street and We Are The 99% movement has broken the silence for many people—sharing their stories publicly for the first time. What is happening to you is not a sign of your failure; the whole system is failing. By telling your story, speaking frankly and openly about your situation, you are giving permission to others to do likewise.
And in so doing, helping the 99% find itself and its voice.
Held In The Light 