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Sermons by Rev. Don W. Vaughn -Foerster

Whatever Happened to "In Your Face" Liberalism?
Rev. Don W. Vaughn -Foerster
Unitarian Universalist Church of Sarasota, FL
October 8, 2006

In my early years as a Unitarian (before Universalism was added to our national name), the Unitarian who influenced me the most was A. Powell Davies. Dr. Davies was the long time minister of All Souls Church in Washington, D.C. and was perhaps the most influential Unitarian minister of his generation. At his untimely death in 1957, the Washington Post called him the most resolute and indomitable champion of human dignity and brotherhood of all the members of his calling. He was a theist but he spoke to agnostic, atheist, and theist alike.

Today I am not going to talk on A. Powell Davies but I am going to talk about one of the most important themes in his life -- and in my own, for that matter. I am going to talk about liberalism -- especially religious liberalism -- and raise the question of what has happened to it during the fifty to sixty years that have passed since Davies was its fiery champion in the center of the witch-hunting McCarthy era.

Liberalism as such was under severe attack in those days, but it had integrity and verve. A lot of the verve and even much of the integrity have been slowly squeezed out of liberalism over the years because the attack intensified as the fears and insecurities of traditionalists hardened into what we now call the radical right. [Please notice that I am not using the word "conservative". I believe that true conservatives, if they want to preserve the good we have inherited from the past, also want to glean more good in the present in order to preserve it.] But, I'm afraid that what we now have is a meek, and sometimes weak-minded, liberalism. In many ways we have a liberalism that seems so to have lost its commitment to itself that liberals sometimes do not know how to honor commitment to one another. In recent years we have even backed away from using the term liberal religion and speak of free religion instead. This was especially so in the radical right climate of Texas when I was there, and I find it to be true of Florida, as well. Now, as far as meanings go, "free" religion or even "progressive" religion are not inappropriate changes in terminology; but they do show a decided backing away from that optimistic, aggressive confrontation with the structures of evil in our world which had become identified with the word "liberal." Such a confrontation once was a prime characteristic of liberals.

We seem to have fallen into the state reflected in one answer to an old question: "How many liberals does it take to change a light bulb?" The pertinent answer is: at least two teams of four, as they need to debate whether or not the light bulb exists. Even if they can agree upon the existence of the light bulb, they still might not change it -- to keep from alienating those who might use other forms of light. Besides, isn't all real change supposed to occur within? If there is to be change, shouldn't the light bulb change itself? Shouldn't the light bulb first have to want to change itself? With such a mindset it is hard, actually, to follow through on one's convictions. It is even hard to have convictions that are not always depending on the outcome of a debate.

Well, what is the criticism of liberalism that makes so many people shy away from it and that makes so many liberals self-doubtful? The main criticism is a very old criticism -- one that has been around since time immemorial. It is a criticism that traditionalists have always leveled against innovators and optimists in any time and any place. Essentially, in the effort to make things better in this world, liberals stand accused of following conscience and believing in the promise of human progress rather than resigning humankind -- and themselves -- to helpless dependence on God or tradition or some outside agency. Liberals have tried to make a better world themselves rather than leave human fate to "false, fallacious hopes of Providential intervention," as Davies once put it. The liberal crime is to act on the assumption that human beings, through their own thought and effort, can make a better world and can put together a more realistic religion. All of this is anathema to those myth and metaphor-laden traditionalists, who prefer to believe in human depravity over human responsibility and in the Apocalypse over humane cooperation, and to those in other aspects of society who trust to the weakness of others for their own advantage.

So, because of past liberal "in your face" advocacy of human answers to human problems, such folks have held liberalism responsible for the very ills that liberalism has tried to cure. It is as if people who dislike liberalism call everything liberal that they dislike. Mention drugs or abortion or children-killing-children or domestic violence or teen pregnancy or the high divorce rate, or mention cloning or any of the liberation movements (gay or women or race and ethnic) -- mention any of society's current challenges or ills and liberals are accused of creating the world that makes such things possible. If it is not approved of in the Bible or already worked into the social fabric, liberals did it! Liberalism became a whipping boy for just about every group that had a religious, or political, or educational dogma that required an outside authority to control the thought and behavior of its members. Because liberals did not take a book (such as the Bible) as the ultimate in truth; because, if they believed in God, they did not pray that God would save them from themselves through some miraculous salvation but that God would save them in and through themselves while they worked out their own salvation; because liberals (whether theist or humanist or whatever) had the courage and the strength to transcend the bondage of supernatural fantasies -- because of such liberal attitudes and motivations the guardians of established institutions and beliefs took every liberal venture to be an act of heresy and evidence of mortal sin.

But the reality is that the serious life issues of today are no more caused by liberals than by conservatives. They happen. They happen because of, let us say, "innovating factors" -- factors that have nothing to do with ideology or politics or religion. They happen because there is more information available to more people, because there are more powerful technological tools, because there are more people pressing against one another for space, and food, and security! They happen because scientists, educators, politicians, artists, poets, musicians, and ordinary, everyday people respond to the world they live in and to one another; and then new situations and new problems arise.

Not only did liberals not create the problems in the world, they did not create the evil that resides in some human hearts. Nor did they create ignorance or prejudice or self-serving, false opinions. Nor did they create the delusion that holding hands in the pose of prayer is not the same as sitting on them -- unless one also gets busy and puts the praying hands to work. No, liberals did not create the ills of society nor the ethical diseases of the human heart; but, actually, liberals are the ones who most want to do something to correct these things. Apparently this is left to liberals because those who most loudly espouse traditional values and practices are the least likely to attempt to rectify the injustices, bigotries, hatreds, divisiveness perpetuated in those traditions. The reality is that the ills of this world are most likely to be attacked and solved by liberals -- not by traditionalists, not by guardians of the status quo.

But, what, really, is this "liberalism" I have been talking about? It is, I believe, one of the most humanizing concepts in our language. The common denominator of all liberalism is devotion to liberty. As A. Powell Davies put it, "Liberalism is that which liberates. Its object is to loosen bondage, whether of the mind or of the person, whether of individuals or societies, and its motivation is faith that human life can only reach its fullest stature through continuous liberation -- through the struggle to be free."

Political liberals seek to free themselves and all others from servitude to oppressive systems. They believe that the best society is that society where all people are free to participate in ruling it. Educational liberals believe that access to human knowledge and its use are natural human rights and should be universal. They would have open, mind-stimulating education for all persons, regardless of social status. Religious liberals stand for the unhindered use of the free mind in arriving at conviction. They would have religion be open to ever greater inclusiveness and ever sharper adherence to conscience over dogma. "Freedom, therefore -- increasing freedom through the entire scope of human life -- has been the watchword of liberalism" -- more words by A. Powell Davies.

Regardless of the attacks by illiberal types, regardless of those who say "freedom" but really mean "control", liberal politics is the hope of politics, liberal education is the hope of education, and liberal religion is the hope of religion. If there is no liberalism, there is no progress, no optimism, no freedom. If you are using your freedom, you are liberated. You are free. You are liberal. Even if you consider yourself a conservative, when you would free yourself from obsolescent, confining modes of thought, you are into the liberalizing (liberating) mode. It has always been interesting to me that, whenever liberalism has been grossly and loudly redefined by its reactionary critics, conservatives with a desire for openness and responsible change have also suffered. And, labels aside, human beings are to be trusted when they respect one another's needs and rights but are not to be trusted when they don't -- whether they call themselves liberal or conservative. Another corollary: a humane conservative you can trust is better than a self-serving, so-called liberal whom you can't -- and vice versa.

But, in spite of the reality and the need of liberalism -- especially liberal religion -- the critics have had an enormous influence in confusing the true nature of liberalism. They have redefined it not as a necessary dimension of human progress but as a sectarian push to create a world that violates the precious heritage handed down to us by our forebears. They have defined it as un-American, as licentious, as sinful. And large numbers of people have let these redefinition's stand. Even liberals have avoided contesting them but rather have slipped quietly out of view when they could. For years now, it has been a bit unusual to find a liberal -- even a religious liberal -- willing to stand up and aggressively assert that the radical right and other traditionalists are wrong about liberalism. Few people strongly assert the need for liberation from obsolescent rites and dogmas anymore. In fact, in liberal religion, it has become something of a badge of openness to try to incorporate the obsolescent into liberal religious celebration and worship - to go back to terms and liturgies that have the undertow of dogmatism within them. Much ground has been lost - and is still being lost --within liberal religion because of such responses to outside pressures.

But, just as much ground was lost, also, because many liberals lost their nerve. Instead of forcefully, though charitably, asserting their belief in freedom in human affairs, many either went into hiding or became defensive and shrill, paranoid and hateful -- as if somewhere, deep inside themselves, they were afraid their critics might be right. For instance, it does not advance the cause of the free mind to impugn Pat Robertson's or Jerry Falwell's character or George W. Bush's integrity as an argument against their point of view. That is the fallacy of argument against the person. That is speaking ad hominem and not to the issue. [Or, as they say in some parts of the south, that is to cover up the eggs and the ham by adding too many hominem grits.]

And, in my last settled ministry another instance a bit too close to home demonstrated a kind of shrillness unbecoming of liberals -- that time in their dealings with one another. When I was in Texas, we had some members resign because they had been offended by what they considered to be attacks on both their character and their more traditional theistic faith. It was the sort of thing that does not arise when people truly respect one another's freedom. If you are practicing freedom, you communicate differences without impugning the other person's character or limiting the other person's freedom. In this squabble, somehow, neither side of the situation did very well. Consequently, true liberal (truly free) religion suffered. Until everybody is able to avoid covering each other in ad hominem grits, true liberal (truly free) religion -- or politics or education or what have you -- seldom occurs.

So, whatever happened to "in your face" liberalism? Actually, some people here and there still practice it. I already know that many people in this room do. However, for the most part, it is a casualty of vehement criticisms by people who would have us live by obsolescent practices and autocratic standards. And, even more distressing, it is a casualty of the loss of nerve by many liberals who would rather keep a low profile than take consequences that go with standing up for their convictions. They would rather be safe than conscientious.

This reaction has given rise to what is almost a religiously suicidal notion on the part of some liberals themselves that liberal religion (i.e. free religion) has no substance of its own but must try to encompass as much diversity as possible just to prove that it offers choices. But choices are not all there is; choices are not freedom. They are only one of the ways we exercise freedom. Liberal religion is more than diversity and choices. It is the affirmation of freedom itself, which means the affirmation of principles that enable human beings to be free in the first place. To be more specific, liberal religion affirms at least as much as we Unitarian Universalists affirm in our UUA Principles -- to list just a few of them: the inherent worth and dignity of every person; justice, equity, and compassion; a free and responsible search for truth and meaning; the right of conscience; and respect for all existence. Without dignity, justice, equity, compassion, responsibility, conscience, and respect, freedom cannot exist.

Of course, my intention here is to urge on us all a greater, more affirmative assertion of liberalism, especially in religion. It is of the very essence of human progress. Without it, humankind in general -- and ourselves in particular --will remain stuck in the ruts of obsolescent wagon tracks when we could be soaring toward an ever-expanding, ever-improving humanity. We could be following up on a sentiment I once saw in a Sunday's comic section. One character asks another, "What do you think of the idea of humans evolving?" And the other responds, "I think it's worth a try." So do I. Especially since evolution itself is a liberal and liberating idea, isn't it? And we are religious liberals, aren't we? Isn't it time actually to get around to changing the bulb and casting some real light on our responsibilities? Isn't it time to make sure that integrity and verve are part of our free, liberal religion? Isn't it time, again, to be who we say we are?