"WHAT VALUES? WHOSE VALUES?

"WHAT VALUES? WHOSE VALUES?

A Sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear

Sunday, May 15, 2005

All Souls Unitarian Church

Indianapolis, Indiana

I open with an observation from the writer Somerset Maugham who said:

“If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom. And the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more (than freedom), it will lose that, too.”

Freedom is perhaps the prime value that has guided our nation from its founding. More recently, we hear an increasing call to reclaim moral values as central to our country. There is, of course, no necessary conflict between freedom and moral values, but only if we are clear about the meaning of those values. That is my focus this morning.

The phrase “moral values” seems to be near the top of the issues list in our society this year. Some analysts seem to feel that the United States is in the midst of what more than once has been called a “culture war,” where competing moral values are at stake. This view can be summarized in a comment from Gary Bauer, a long-time leader in the Religious Right movement:

“We are engaged in a social, political, and cultural war. There’s a lot of talk in America about pluralism. But the bottom line is somebody’s values will prevail. And the winner gets the right to teach our children what to believe.”

In a time when actual wars are increasingly becoming the first rather than the last option for solving problems, talk of a “culture war” can be highly contentious. It suggests that a certain set of values are going to win and another set is going to lose.

I don’t want to spend my time this morning addressing the political dimensions of this question. I do want to look at what is meant when we talk about moral values. More specifically, I think a useful distinction can and should be made between moral values on one hand, and values of religious doctrine on the other.

This week our state witnessed one of the most tragic examples of the difference between moral values and doctrinal religious values. A young couple chose to cure their infant daughter of a curable affliction through prayer alone, foregoing any medical attention. The child died. No one can question that their values were religiously driven according to their honestly and devoutly held doctrines. Those specific religious values, though, proved to be lethal when imposed on their child. Clearly there are some religiously motivated “moral values,” such as prayer as a substitute for medicine, that are difficult to accept as society’s “moral values” at large. If we are being called to reclaim our “moral values” as a nation, it is important to ask what values we are talking about, and whose values we are willing to endorse.

The current debate over “moral values” began with reports of an exit poll taken after last Fall’s election, indicating that a surprising number of voters identified “moral values” as their most important issue, more than terrorism, more than the economy. That poll seems to have been of fairly ambiguous value. By its vague language, analysts seemed to connect “moral values” to only two issues: anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage.

Anyone giving the question of “moral values” even a cursory thought would expect, of course, that the topic is much broader than those two issues. Moral values are attached to almost every issue that could be named. Certainly war and peace qualify as issues of moral concern. Civil rights and justice are undeniably subjects steeped in moral values, and the fight for civil rights has been one of the most clearly morality-based movements in our history. I suppose if one looked to the New Testament to discover what Jesus addressed as moral values, one would find not a word about anything remotely related to abortion or gay marriage, but it would overwhelmingly show concern for helping the poor, the underprivileged, and others rejected by society.

In fact, after that well-publicized election poll, a follow-up poll, given by Zogby International, demonstrated that the conclusions about “moral values” were not as simplistic as the media presented. This pollster, instead of asking voters a vague question about “moral values” instead asked specifically “which moral issue most influenced your vote?” Forty-two percent said the war in Iraq. Thirteen percent said “abortion,” and a mere 9% said same-sex marriage.

When the pollster asked them to name the “most urgent moral problem in American culture,” the most frequent answer, at 33%, was “greed and materialism,” followed by 31% saying “poverty and economic justice.” “Oh, yeah,” I thought to myself after reading that, “corporate corruption!” How easily we forget the moral implications of greedy business leaders who have financially devastated the lives of thousands of citizens in the last few years. Continuing on this question of “the most urgent moral problem in America,” only 16% said “abortion,” and 12% “same-sex marriage.”

There is no question that the public issues we consider as a nation are addressed by the moral values we citizens hold. And that is as it should be. I certainly hope that our decisions as responsible citizens in a democracy are guided by our own moral values. To consider those issues, though, it is appropriate to ask, “What Values” and “Whose Values” are guiding our decisions?

My thoughts this morning are only indirectly concerned with the specific issues I just named. I have given other sermons addressed to almost each one, and I don’t want to do that here. What I would like to do is take a close look at the meaning of values, and try to understand better what role this plays in our lives as citizens.

One question that begs to be examined is the source of authority for our moral values. The question of moral authority is perhaps one of the most vital distinctions to consider in examining moral values. Do our values come from God, or from our own conscience? Are all values relative – mine are mine and yours are yours and there is no authority to judge whose is right or wrong? To what extent do we have the authority to force our values on others? Are there absolute values that cannot be violated, and if so what authority determines them? If there are no absolute values, then is there any morality at all?

I would like to make what I think is a crucial distinction between moral values and doctrinal religious values. I think the blurring of this distinction has lead to quite a bit of confusion on this matter today.

There are some who would suggest that God is the authority for all moral values. This view is expressed in Doestoevsky’s famous remark, “If God did not exist, everything would be permitted.” The great existentialist Jean Paul Sartre agreed with Doestoevsky, and went on to propose another famous observation, that “we are condemned to be free.”

What Sartre meant by that is that it might be nice of we could have some authority to choose our values for us, but we don’t. We are responsible and accountable for the choices we make. Any review of the history of religion will illustrate that relying on divine authority is risky, at best, or at least unreliable. Church-based moral values guided crusades and inquisitions against innocent millions, alliances with the rich and powerful against the poor and oppressed, and so forth. At each step, it was claimed by those serving religion that they were simply following God’s will.

It seemed obvious to Sartre that we are moral and ethical only to the extent that we are responsible and accountable for the decisions we make. That is why we are “condemned to be free.” We cannot justify our moral actions by saying “God told me to do it,” or because “the Bible says so.” To do so would be an abdication of personal responsibility.

From this view, the question of moral authority is easily answered. Each of us must take responsibility for our moral values, whether we adopt them from some outside source or not.

G,K. Chesterton once succinctly defined “morality” as simply “drawing the line somewhere.” Actually, I like that concise little definition. The “somewhere” implies that there is no ordained place for that line between right and wrong, and the action of “drawing the line” implies the real need to decide anyway. Morality is “drawing the line somewhere.” Ultimately, it is up to each of us to “draw the line somewhere.”

But we are still left with the question concerning what basis we use for “drawing the line.” It is clear that religion is one common – perhaps the most common – source for this. It is also true that morality exists outside of and parallel to religious traditions. To what extent, then, are our moral values simply derived from our religious doctrines, and to what extent are they created by ourselves and our society?

Socrates gave us a lot to think about. Some of his catchy ideas are intellectual puzzles that are still fun to ponder, after thousands of years. For example, he claimed that his reputation for being wise was because, unlike other people, he was aware that he didn’t know very much. He knew he was ignorant, and that is the source of his wisdom. Other people, he said, deceive themselves into thinking they are smart because they think they know a lot. That is the source of their foolishness.

Anyway, there is another Socratic puzzle that is relevant to our topic this morning. Think of it as an intellectual parlor game that has meaning. Socrates once asked this peculiar question: Are things that are good, good because God approves of them, or does God approve of things because they are intrinsically good? Is it God’s approval that makes some behavior morally right or is it the goodness of moral behavior that warrants God’s approval?

Almost any example can illustrate this question. We can all agree that honesty is a good value. Is telling the truth a virtue because God says so, such as some believe he did the Ten Commandments, or is truth-telling a good thing in and of itself, and that is why God endorses it? Is stealing wrong because God says it is wrong, or does God say it is wrong because it is wrong?

In other words, what makes values good or bad? If certain behavior, say murder, is wrong only because God says it is wrong, then murder is not wrong absent God’s disapproval. It becomes wrong only when God makes that judgment. The judgment that murder is wrong then becomes arbitrary, because God cannot be accountable to anything, not even moral principles. If God is accountable, then there is something greater than God. There can be no right or wrong without divine judgment.

This view that there is no good or bad unless or until God declares it to be good or bad is found in those who establish their moral values solely on the Bible or the Koran – that is, those who, when asked why certain things are wrong reply, “because the Scripture says so.” There is no need, then, to look to any other authority, such as reason or conscience. There is no morality, then, outside of divine opinion. (Still, the dilemma remains. After all, Socrates asked his puzzling question long before the Jewish or Christian or Muslim bibles were available)

The other view is that moral actions do have intrinsic good or bad value, and it is because of their value that they may have divine approval or disapproval. Murder is wrong, this view says, and it is wrong whether or not we believe God says it is wrong. If ethical values can be seen as good in themselves, with or without the judgment of God, then morality is something outside of God’s control or domain. At the very least, we can agree that, from this view, God’s approval or disapproval is not needed to discover what is ethically right or wrong.

This is an enjoyable intellectual exercise, I think. But it has some far-reaching lessons when considering the role of values in society. For one thing, if we agree that right and wrong have intrinsic value and do not depend for that value on God’s approval, then we also have to agree that it is possible to know right from wrong without relying on religious doctrine. This insight leads to a crucial distinction between moral values, on one hand, and doctrinal religious values on the other. These two are not the same thing, though there often is substantial overlap.

Moral values are those values that society can agree upon without invoking religious doctrine to justify. The basic taboos against murder and lying and stealing, for example, are universally accepted even in cultures that don’t have something like a Ten Commandments to prohibit them. They are affirmed independent of religious doctrine, even though most religious doctrines agree.

Religious values are those values that are derived from doctrine or scripture, rather than arrived at through society simply by a moral consensus. Let me offer a brief list of examples of religious values that are not broadly moral values:

Some religions, such as Mormanism, say it is wrong to consume beverages that have caffeine. Or have alcohol. This religious moral value is founded in scripture. It comes, they say, from God.

Some religions say it is wrong to use artificial birth control. This religious moral value is based on scripture and church traditions. It comes, they say, from God.

Some religions, such as the Aryan Church, believe that non-Caucasian races are inferior, should be segregated in society, and made second-class citizens. Racism, they say, is a religious moral value which is authorized by scripture and comes from the Word of God.

Some religions advocate good works. Many churches sponsor food kitchens or homeless shelters, or sponsor groups like Habitat for Humanity, building houses for the poor. The Catholics are the world’s leaders in building hospitals and schools. Islam makes it a religious duty to give money to the poor. Judaism considers good works a blessing. This moral value of helping others in need is scripturally-based. It is God’s command.

Roman Catholicism also teaches that pre-emptive wars are wrong. This religious moral value is based on scripture and tradition and comes, they say, from God.

Some religions require of its members to honor a Sabbath, a day of rest, when no work, or sometimes even recreation, is allowed. This religious moral value is biblically commanded. It comes from God. Taking the Bible at its word, Jews and Seventh Day Adventists honor the Sabbath on Saturday. Most of Christendom has changed the Sabbath to Sunday.

Some religions forbid women from any leadership roles, in church or society, and some of those religions also declare that the man is the head of the household and a wife must obey whatever the husband commands. This is a religious moral imperative from scripture, and therefore from God.

I offer this list to help illustrate a distinction between moral values and doctrinal religious values. These items come from doctrine and scripture and church tradition. Most are not generally accepted moral values, though some are. Some of these items are probably good and beneficial, such as taking one day of rest during the week, or promoting good works and helping the poor, or avoiding excess alcohol. Other religious values are clearly not good moral values by society’s standards – such as racism and sexism. The fact that they are believed to be commanded by God does not justify them as moral values for our society. They are religious values for those who believe them. They are not moral values for society. Religious doctrine is not an adequate justification for moral values for all society.

The Bible clearly prohibits public display of personal wealth, and on that basis my grandmother never wore any form of jewelry in her life, not even a wedding ring. To do so, she believed, would be a violation of God’s clear teachings. I respected, and still respect, her devotion to her principles, but I would not want her religious values on this matter legislated into public policy. Her values were doctrinally religious in nature, not moral requirements for a diverse society.

I am trying to make this distinction between moral values and religious values because many people do not seem to understand the difference. The call for “moral values” is too often these days framed within the context of religious values. This is why the Socrates’ insight is so important. If morality is solely dependent upon what God declares is right, then a moral society can only be a theocracy, based on what the rulers at the moment believe God’s opinions to be.

Instead of going to other religions, let me illustrate by using Unitarian Universalism. Our religious values are generally identified in the UUA Statement of Principles. These are our values, and we cannot expect them to be imposed on others. For example, one of those principles says that we value the democratic process in our congregations. That is what we value, but it should not be imposed on others. Hierarchical congregations, such as Roman Catholic and many evangelical or charismatic Protestants for example, are not intended to be run democratically. The same is true for most evangelical and charismatic Protestant congregations. Their rejection of democratic process in religion is based on some very important principles in their own religion, and in no way should they be required to adopt our religious value of democratic method.

We also cite as our religious principle the “free search for truth.” Again, other churches do not value a free search for truth, but rather prefer that search to be bound within prescribed creeds. Our value of freedom is our religious value, and it should not be expected that others have to share it. Religious values should not be imposed on others as a moral value.

I give all these examples, again, simply to point to a distinction between moral values on one hand, and doctrinal religious values on the other.

I think there is little question that in a free society everyone is entitled to personal values based on whatever religious doctrine they affirm, and there is no reason to interfere with their personal moral decisions to the extent it doesn’t harm others. Once we move away from that personal realm, however, we enter into the public arena in which our moral values as a society cannot be grounded solely on religious doctrine. This week’s story of the child who died because of her parent’s religious values concerning prayer is an unfortunate illustration of this point.

We do need a consensus on laws that proscribe personal behavior when that behavior is damaging to our society – such as laws against murder and theft. But such laws proscribing personal behaviors cannot be founded solely on religious doctrine – such as whom we can marry or when life begins or whether to use prayer rather than medicine in saving a child’s life. Today’s call for “moral values” in society must honor the distinction between values and doctrine, or we will be tending toward theocracy in which whatever religion prevails will make the laws.

As Somerset Maugham pointed out: “If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom.” This current discussion of “moral values” would, I think, benefit from the recognition that in this country at least, all values under discussion must be filtered through our national devotion to freedom.