Overcoming Violence and War: August 2005 Archives

Many religious liberals believe that if people became "more" rational, we could overcome most of the problems facing human beings.  The argument seems to be that racism, oppression and violence are irrational, and therefore the people whose actions and words enable racism, oppression and violence are themselves irrational.  Thus the liberal hopes that education and "more rational" world views will eventually create sufficient rationality and we will study war no more.  Michael Foucault has a different understanding of rationality:

"All human behavior is scheduled and programmed through rationality. There is a logic of institutions and in behavior and in political relations. In even the most violent ones there is a rationality. What is most dangerous in violence is its rationality. Of course violence itself is terrible. But the deepest root of violence and its permanence come out of the form of the rationality we use. The idea had been that if we live in the world of reason, we can get rid of violence. This is quite wrong. Between violence and rationality there is no incompatibility."

Overcoming violence is a question of personal and interpersonal transformation, it means we must cease to accept the logic of violence, and embrace the logic of mutuality.  It is a moral and religious choice, it involves a commitment.  We must work toward a new ethic of relationship.  In order to do this we need must understand the logic of violence, its rationality.  Violence is a morality, an alternative moral stance. Yesterday, I wrote about violence as a religious stance, the real religion of America.  Adherents of violence include many of the adherents of traditional religious movements, as well secularists who distain religious involvement.

Without regard to the Christian versus non Christian divide, Pat Robertson's pronouncements are defended by those who adhere to the logic of violence, and they are rejected by those repudiate that logic.  Gandhi, who taught the world about the non-violent ethic of Jesus, was murdered by a fellow Hindu whose real religion was nationalism and violence.  Catholics are continually shocked by their hierarchy's facility at making strong statements for peace, and justice, while allying with a politics of reaction.  The mass peace movement among Israelis has been constantly frustrated by the misuse of Judaism by that nations' religious right.  The traditional lines of demarcation that divide the religions are relics of the past, the question for our future is who stands for violence and domination and who stands for mutual interdependence and peace

Unitarian Universalists have often extended their notion of freedom of belief to include moral stances.  If we have freedom from creeds, if we are encouraged to develop our theological understanding, some of us conclude that we can believe anything that we want.  If we can believe anything we want, why not believe what we wish relative to morality?  If I am a war monger, and you are a pacifist, is this simply a difference in life styles?  Is morality relative?  I believe that morality arises out the depths of the human condition, and that there are viable and life giving moralities on the one hand, and destructive and limiting moralities on the other.

Over centuries nations and the religions of power have embodied and institutionalized violence, and  many people have accepted its logic. On the other hand there are many, many people who have repudiated the habits, ideas and rationale of violence.  The yearning for an alternative to violence is a mass sentiment, one that religious voices need to speak to loudly and consistently.  The recent conference on spiritual activism organized by Tikkun is one effort, Rita Brocks efforts to create dialog around Faith Voices for the Common Good is another.

Overcoming violence requires the same kind of transformational work as work to overcome racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression.  For Unitarian Universalism to become an alternative to the religion of violence, we must be about personal and interpersonal transformation.  To be an real alternative we provide such an alternative.  We must also be about reaching out and uniting with all who seek a world reborn.

[Violence] ..not Christianity, is the real religion of America," writes Walter Wink.  He continues:

Violence is the ethos of our times,  It is the spirituality of the modern world.  It has been accorded the status of a religion, demanding from its devotees absolute obedience to death. Its followers are not aware, however, that the devotion they pay to violence is a form of religious piety.  Violence is so successful as a myth precisely because it does not seem to mythic in the least.  Violence simply appears to be the nature of things.  It is what works.  It is inevitable, the last and often the first resort to conflicts.
(Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Powers. (Minneapolis, Fortress Press. 1992)  p.13-4; p.54-5.)

Violence is not simply a matter of disturbing the peace. Violence is way of relating to others, and ultimately to "interdependent web of all existence" as some of us are fond of saying.  The Latin root of violence is related to violating, to breaking right relations with the other by making that other an object for our own manipulation. Thus, we can violate the other by any act that does not treat the other with ultimate respect, with unconditional regard.  I think we made a principle about that idea as well.

Unitarian Universalists think of ourselves as an alternative religious response.  When I was young we thought of ourselves as an alternative to orthodoxy and authoritarianism in religion.  Lately the notion seems to have become normative that we are intended to be an alternative to Christianity.  Most Unitarian Universalists have discovered that posing themselves against Christianity is problematic, and limiting.  When Unitarian Universalists  create a caricature of Christianity, and then pose as "an alternative" to that caricature, they become insubstantial, sectarian and irrelevant as a result

Wink writes our "entire social system has become an ˜economy'." The economy brings us into relations of mutual violence, power over, and privilege.  The failure of secular alternatives to the dominations system, such as Marxism is that they adopt the interpersonal and relational logic of domination system as expedients to liberation, and exploitation free future.  Only by right means may we achieve right ends.

What might this mean for Unitarian Universalist identity?  If we define ourselves as a religious alternative, why not become an alternative to the real religion of America?  If we were such an alternative how would that define our mission, how would it shape the ethic we offered for living one's life,  and our vision as a faith.

What if we could articulate an alternative to violence?  What would it mean for our nation? for our world?


Children in the United States 1937, playing a game of war.

If you can't travel to Crawford, you can still stand with the Gold Star Families For Peace by sending a single rose for $3. Roses will be placed on the crosses erected at Camp Casey in remembrance of our fallen service men and women.  This is a Code Pink initiative.

Vigil in support of Gold Star Families.

Despite the assumption of many bloggers, the problem with Pat Robertson is not old age.  I have close relations with well over a hundred Unitarian Universalists who are older than he is, and none of them talk about murder, make wild accusations about imagined foes, or claim to be misunderstood in the face of videotaped evidence.  Pat Robertson has contempt for other human beings, and has no notion that something called reality is judging his words and his deeds.  He has been practicing triumphalism for a long time. 

Good people who age to not become Pat Robertsons.

There has been a lot of talk about how Moslem's must hold their themselves accountable for Islamic extremism, and must condemn the terrorists misuse of Islamic teachings.  How are Christians responding to Pat Robertson's call to assassinate Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected president of Venezuela? Does Robertson speak for Christianity?  Chuck Currie, a United Church of Christ seminarian gives a good summary of the responses and non-responses so far. 

This is a teaching moment, we should not let it slip away.

I am struck by the resurgence in the peace movement  in the last few weeks and its implications for Unitarian Universalism.  We have lived with a contradiction in our principles and purposes for nearly thirty years, and we should at least acknowledge it, learn what it has to teach us.

We assert in the Principles and Purposes that among the sources of our living tradition we count the "[w]ords and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love."  For the many, many Unitarian Universalists who have traveled to Crawford, Texas, attended vigils, wrote letters to the editor, lit candles in church, and said a prayer of gratitude, Cindy Sheehan and the other Gold Star Parents against the war are prophets. The Southern Christian Leadership Council who knows courageous witness when they see it has been mobilizing support and sending delegations to Texas.

Yet, in our Principles and Purposes we also asset that we cherish the use of the democratic process, and we might be tempted to extend that principle to selecting prophets.  But if that is the case, who choose Cindy Sheehan?  She is certainly an embarrassment to the political class. Those among us who see the contest between Democrats and Republicans as crucial will argue that she is not a good spokesperson for "our side."  We should look to more responsible members of the opposition party, such as Hilary Clinton.

I invite you to consider a Unitarian Universalist congregation, what if they decided to call a prophet?  They would take a survey, they would elect a search committee, they would look at a number of available candidates.  We can be sure that they would not want someone who would cause internal dissension.  She would never swear, make divisive statements about foreign policy, and her program for action would be realistic.  A prophet with naïve ideas about immediate disengagement from evil, impeachment of the king, and other such pronouncements wouldn't make the cut.  If we choose a prophet by the democratic process she would look a lot like a member of our Unitarian Universalist clergy - a facilitator of process, teacher of wisdom, professional institution builder, but not a prophet. (I protest that some of us retire, and become prophets, and some of us do become community ministers, but then I confess that most of us are caretakers of the unity of our congregations, a role in contradiction with pronouncing justice.)

Thanks to James Luther Adams we believe in the prophethood of all believers, and it is among the unchosen laity that we witness prophecy in our midst.  In my experience as an institutional manager, when prophets arise within the congregation, they are uncommonly disruptive, they raise challenging questions, and they have a lousy sense of timing.  I love my prophets, but at a distance.

So, it is good that we do not choose our prophets by any democratic process. The ancient tradition gave us the story that prophets are called by God.  That explanation does have possibilities for progressives. Liberation theologians argue that God prefers the poor and powerless against the rich and the powerful.  Judgement for the liberation theologian would look a lot like popular revolt.

For those of us with a more incarnate, embodied divinity, prophets arise when human beings seek to be in right relationship with each other, and find the social and political arrangements of their time to be corrupt, violent, and dehumanizing.  The prophetic woman or man being an embodied person will experience these dysfunctions as immoral, as violations of their deepest values, and respond with anger.  Being human they will respond emotionally, and convey that raw, irrational emotion to all who behold their witness.  Rage not rational calculation is the mark of the prophet.  And because of that emotional response, she will tap into the anger that lies in the hearts of many of her contemporaries who will experience the prophet speaking for their deepest values, their ultimate concerns.  They will experience her as embodying their own anger and hatred for wrong doing, corruption, and misuse of power.  And she will call forth many others to prophecy.

It is all so messy and so unpredictable.  No well managed search committee would choose such a person.  And the King will be embarrassed, and the rivals of the King will annoyed, but the spirit "bloweth where it listeth...and maketh all things new."

Image from Salt Lake 08-22-04