"By Any Other Name"

The events of this fall have called into question

        many of our assumptions about modern life:

Our sense of security has shifted abruptly 

        into a new and scary place.

Expectations about the future are anyone’s guess.

 

I was at the flu shot clinic the other day

        when I overheard someone

                reassuring an older woman

                        that she expected her to be around 

                                for another twenty-five years.

The nurse who gave me my shot overheard this too. 

She said, as she was jabbing my arm with a needle,

"I don't expect any of us are going to be around

        another twenty-five years."

"Because of everything 

        that’s going on in the world right now?"

                I asked.

"I mean, the terrorists are coming back.

        Just give them time.

                But they’ll be back and then there'll be no one left."

 

This was a casual conversation.

She slapped a Bandaid on me;

        I picked up my jacket

                and said goodbye.

Perhaps it was goodbye forever.

As we learn about how the world got this way,

        it's impossible not to realize

                that religion has played a huge and devastating role in our demise.

Each of you has probably asked yourself

        what good is religion

                if it can result in such horrific violence.

I've even had my doubts about 

        the reasonable, temperate version of religion

                we practice here.

Perhaps we should just give up our spot

        on the far liberal end of the religious spectrum

                and stop trying to be a religion at all.

 

The first few difficult days after September 11,

        I consoled myself with the idea

                that the terrorists who did this awful thing

                        were not religious people,

                                but nihilists out to destroy everything

                                        a peaceful society holds dear.

But they are not nihilists.

They are practicing an extreme form of religion

        that has taught them that their deeds

                serve the larger purpose of cosmic struggle,

                        violence in the service of God.

They believe they are doing good.

 

"They see a world going awry

        and they are fighting for pride and honor …

                with a sense of vocation,"

                        sociologist Mark Juergensmeyer adds.

Religious terrorists of all faiths share this conviction.

Hamas suicide bombers,

Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas throwers,

        Christian Identity warriors:

                all cut from the same cloth.

 

Images of God and the holy

        and symbols that convey the grace and goodness 

                of their power

                        have traditionally invoked peace:

                                the lion is supposed to lie down with the lamb,

                                        not stalk it to death.

But these images and symbols

        lead just as readily to acts of violence,

                blurring the boundary between real and imaginary.

The religious imagination is fertile ground

        for good and for evil.

And the idea that God has favored one group of followers

        with a special place in the world

                is as old as the Hebrew bible.

 

According to Mark Juergensmeyer, 

        religion is not at fault.

Rather, real-world events engage the religious imagination,

        transforming politics into a human struggle 

                writ large in the cosmic mind of God.

His study offers some criteria, 

        for what leads to such a transformation.

A confrontation is likely 

        to be turned into a cosmic war,

                he writes,

                        if any of these three conditions are met.

First, 

        "the struggle is perceived as a defense

                of basic identity and dignity:"

                        that is, it defends not just lives 

                                but a way of life.

Second, 

        "losing the struggle would be unthinkable."

"The more that goals are reified and made inflexible,"

        he adds, "the greater the possibility that they will be deified

                and seen as the fulfillment of holy writ."      

And third, 

        "the struggle is blocked and cannot be won

                in real time or in real terms."

"Religion and its grand scenarios of cosmic war

        are needed most

                in hopeless moments,

                        when mythical strength provides the only resources at hand."

This is what it takes 

        to be willing to sacrifice your young life

                in a horrific act of violence.

Far from impulsive,

        the motivation is deeply ingrained,

                disciplined

                        and justified by religious authority.

 

Although an act of terrorism may be sacred for the perpetrator,

        cultural conditions provoke it.

Whether the perpetrator is bombing an American abortion clinic

        or a Jerusalem street lined with busy cafes,

                the terrorist believes that immoral social norms

                        are the enemy.

Paradoxically, terrorists also believe 

        that they are overcoming cultural violence

                through their own violent acts.

They view secular society

        as the real evil.

And that is why they believe God is on their side.

 

The appropriation of God for any cause

        always results in conflict, 

                oppression 

                        and confusion about religion.

Now Muslims must painstakingly explain

        how their faith

                is different from bin Laden's. 

That shouldn't be necessary.

But terrorists have used their religion

        in the service of a malevolent enterprise,

                with which a peaceful practice 

                        simply cannot compete for attention.

Horror obliterates understanding.

 

Not all acts of terrorism have a religious dimension,

        as Juergensmeyer pointed out 

                in the selection I read earlier.

This violent culture that is our world

        has ancient roots –

                all the way back to the creation,

                        according to Genesis.

The story I told the children 

        suggests that people have a primordial tendency

                towards conflict and intolerance.

But the fact that terrorism and religion

        can be so easily caught up together

                leaves many of us wanting to know

                        whether the world would be a less scary place

                                if religion were not part of it.

That is, assuming we have a choice.

 

A recent study of the brain and the religious imagination

        concludes that the human mind will seek God

                in one way or another.

An intriguing and challenging book, 

        titled Why God Won't Go Away,

                poses the theory 

                        that religion is part of being human.

The religious imagination is the work of the brain –

        not something imposed on it from the outside.

Religion is grounded in our biology.

The authors, experts in brain development, 

        write,

                "myths are driven by biological compulsion,

                        … rituals are intuitively shaped to trigger unitary states,

                                … mystics are, after all, not necessarily crazy,

                                        and … all religions are branches 

                                                of the same spiritual tree. …"

They conclude,

        "As long as our brains are arranged the way they are,

                as long as our minds are capable of sensing [a] deeper reality,

                        spirituality will continue to shape the human experience,

                                and God, however we define that majestic,

                                        mysterious concept,

                                                will not go away."

Neither will religion,

        for better and for worse.

Mark Juergensmeyer wraps up his study of terrorism

        by affirming the role for religion in society.

Its passion and its power 

        to lift human aspiration to a higher plane

                confer positive value,  

                        despite its risks.

There is much good that religion can do.

 

But the darkness that lurks in the religious imagination

        is also essentially human.

Only we can be responsible 

        for how we employ its energy to destroy.

And that responsibility belongs to all religions,

        whatever our origins or our beliefs.

 

One of the strengths of Unitarian Universalism

        is our emphasis on individual responsibility

                as a core value of our faith.

And we do not require our members to agree about beliefs

        in order to belong to our church.

Beliefs are individual,

        not collective, for us.

Community gathers us together, not doctrine.

We nurture attitudes of tolerance and mutual respect,

        rather than tell each other what it is right to believe.

To a devotee of a traditional faith,

        our lack of common belief,

                however convivial we may be,

                        makes us something less than a religion.

Perhaps it does,

        by conventional standards.

That may be good!

After all, whatever answers our minds and hearts 

        may find in the search 

                for unity and transcendence,

                        we do not impose them on others.

And whatever dark thoughts 

        some of us may have from time to time,

                haven’t got a chance of being codified

                        or canonized into holy writ.

 

In this sense, 

        we are less dangerous than traditional religion.

The collective power that takes on cosmic proportions

        is slow to generate here.

Instead, our community empowers individuals

        to discern and to express an individual faith,

                and to live it responsibly in the world.

 

I would not want to be too smug

        about how we are different

                or exempt from the hazards of religion.

We make our share of mistakes.

But we are not likely to embrace 

        moral absolutism or cosmic struggle.

Divine authority doesn't hold much power, either.

That may be our saving grace.

 

Instead, as A. Powell Davies stated so eloquently,

         "Religion is not something separate and apart from ordinary life. 

It is life – life of every kind viewed 

        from the standpoint of meaning and purpose: 

                life lived in the fuller awareness of its human quality 

                        and spiritual significance."

Religious community teaches us to reflect 

        on the quality of life

                and on the life-sustaining quality 

                        of our relationships to each other.

 

At a time when people are bracing themselves

        for the next bad thing to happen,

                when simply leaving the house 

                        is an act of courage,

                                our religion has hope and solace to offer.

If we can gather together,

        without fear,

                remind ourselves that we can still trust each other

                        and enjoy our lives together,

                                we have found a faith for today.

Trust and mutuality are powerful antidotes

        to terror and suspicion.

Though some may not call it faith,

        I say that the holy is present 

                where we feel safe,

                        where the light shines through the darkness,

                                and people are free to seek their God in peace.

References used to prepare this sermon include Terror in the Mind of God: TheGlobal Rise of Religious Violence, by Mark Juergensmeyer (Berkeley/LA/London:University of California Press, 2000); Why God Won?t Go Away, by Andrew Newberg,Eugene D?Aquili, Vince Rause (New York: Ballantine Books, 2001).