“THE ANATOMY OF TOLERANCE”

A Sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear

Sunday, November 29, 2009

All Souls Unitarian Church

Indianapolis, Indiana

One of my all-time favorite quotes coming from our movement’s history came from someone who was neither a Unitarian nor a Universalist, but was a radical thinker who was invited to address a convention of Universalists. Well over a century ago, Stephen Pearl Andrews said this to the gathered Universalists:

"You Universalists have squatted on the largest word in the English language."

He was right. There is no word with a larger meaning than “universalism.” It encompasses everyone and everything – the entire interdependent web of existence. We have claimed squatter’s rights to that word, he was saying, and declared it as our word. But then he added an important challenge:

"You Universalists have squatted on the largest word in the English language," he said. And “You ought to improve on the property or get off the premises."

In a sense, this sermon is my attempt to improve on that property. We have long honored “tolerance” of others – especially of other religions -- as one of our valued principles in Unitarian Universalism. Today I propose that we aspire to something more than just being tolerant of others. I hope we can reach for true respect.

In writing a column for the newsletter last month, a paragraph came out of me that I had second thoughts about publishing. I wondered whether it might generate some objections within the congregation. More importantly, I wondered whether I actually believed what I wrote. The paragraph went like this.

“My general approach to evaluating religious beliefs is first to ask whether a person’s religious beliefs help make him or her be a better person, and whether those beliefs help that person contribute to a better world. If the answer is ‘yes,’ then I have no quarrel with their religion – whether Buddhist or Catholic or Humanist or Mormon or Atheist or Baptist or Muslim. As long as they don’t impose their beliefs on others, what “works” for them is a far more important question than what is ‘Truth’.”

I read and re-read those sentences several times, not sure how strongly I believed what I wrote. I held off submitting it for a day or so, wondering whether in the calming balm of time, I would re-consider that point of view. After all, my column was really about economic policy, not religious belief.

Finally, I was confident of my perspective, and it was published the way I wrote it. I was prepared for someone to call for a debate with me about it, but that didn’t happen.

Few people enjoy theological debate more than I do. I love the give and take of ideas, and look forward to respectful differences of opinion. And I welcome the opportunity to wrangle with any of those on the list I gave, or any dozens of other religious groups. So is it true that I “have no quarrel” with the religion views with which I disagree? If so, what does that mean?

I would like us to consider the notion of religious “tolerance” today. I want to suggest that our past notions of tolerance are inadequate for today’s world. By inadequate, I mean weak, and unsatisfactory, and sometimes even damaging toward its own goals. To be tolerant of other religions is the first step in a long march toward true religious freedom. The end of that march is the place where everyone is welcomed to their own place at the table of humanity.

The story of religious tolerance is important and central to our Unitarian and Universalist story. It is an ideal that not only helps define Unitarian Universalism; it is also a value that helped create and form us in the early years. For most of Western history, it was a given that minority religions should be repressed by rule of law. This was not only true of rule by Roman Christianity, it was also true among the Protestants during the Reformation, that as followers of Luther and Calvin broke off from the church, they imposed their own prohibitions against minority religions.

The first crack in the wall of religious persecution came in 1568, when a Unitarian leader convinced the King of Transylvania to issue an Edict of Religious Tolerance, declaring religious freedom for all churches. Specifically it provided that

“No one shall be reviled for their religion in this kingdom by anyone. . . .”

The first breath of religious freedom only lasted a few years, of course, when the King was overthrown by a series of Catholic and Protestant rulers who re-issued rules of persecution. But for one brief moment in history, people took their first breath of religious freedom under Western rulers.

Ever since, then the ideal of religious tolerance, as a part of broader religious freedom, has been central to our Unitarian Universalist roots.

Skip forward a couple of centuries, and pause at the writing of the American Constitution, in which in part through Unitarian influence, the law protected religion from government control, and vice versa.

These stories, of course, are from our Unitarian roots. Our Universalist forebears also had deep convictions about religious tolerance. After all, the whole idea of Universalism that is expressed through that name is that every person has inherent worth, and that all are equal before God. Universalist churches have been instrumental over the years in promoting dialogue among world religions. The Universalist Church of America was a key sponsor in 1893 of the first World Parliament of Religions in Chicago that brought to this continent for the first time many religions from Asia and elsewhere. (By the way, the second World Parliament of Religions, to be held 116 years later, begins in four days in Melbourne, Australia. I hope we will hear reports from it in the media.)

Both Unitarian and Universalist traditions include vital stories of promoting religious tolerance. But this morning I suggest that tolerance is just a start.

Most dictionaries will tell you that tolerance means “to put up with” something, to “suffer” its existence. We talk about “tolerating” noisy rooms or “tolerating” certain kinds of pain. I once had a dentist tell me that he had a “low threshold of tolerance for jokes about pain.” The word “tolerance” is also used to say that we “suffer” the presence of something unpleasant or inferior.

Tolerance is sometimes expressed in public policies of “separate but equal.” Racially segregated schools were felt to be an act of tolerance because at least some form of public education was offered to minorities. Allowing “civil unions” for gay couples is believed by many to be an act of tolerance, even if it denies them the right to marry.

Recall that the idea of tolerance was a response to a world long ago when religious persecutions were the norm. The word had meaning in the context of a political system where minority religions were persecuted. The world we live in today is changed. While there are many examples of unreasonable discrimination against minority religions, outright persecution is rare, especially in this country. The threats to true religious freedom tend to be much more subtle today, but certainly no less real.

What we need today to defend religious freedom is something more that tolerance. We need something closer to respect.

Religious diversity is not just something we should tolerate because it is the right thing to do; religious diversity is an actual benefit to society that we should actively promote. It is in our interest to nurture a society where religions not only tolerate one another, but they respect each other enough to learn from one another.

Our country’s founders knew this need, which was the reason for freedom of speech as well as for religious freedom. They believed in a “marketplace” of ideas where if opinions were free to challenge other opinions, the best ones would survive and rise victorious. Thomas Jefferson applied this especially to religion. He said it about as directly as it can be said. “Difference of opinion is advantageous to religion . . . ,” he wrote. So, not only should we be tolerant of different religions, we should encourage their public dialogue.

When I was considering whether to publish the paragraph in question that I mentioned earlier, my thoughts went to Jefferson’s advice. While I said that I have no quarrel against other religions that make people better, Jefferson said it far more eloquently: “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my legs."

Gustav Niebuhr is a religion professor who was honored at the UUA General Assembly this summer for his recent book titled, Beyond Tolerance: Searching for Interfaith Understanding in America. As the title suggests, Niebuhr expands on the idea that if we want a society where various religions are truly respected and everyone is welcome, we need to move beyond the idea of mere religious tolerance. Here is how he puts it in his book:

“If I am asked to tolerate someone, I hear it as a call to leave that person alone, unhindered to pursue his or her own way. Tolerance is often a low bar to clear. It does not suggest people might learn about—and possibly from—one another. Toleration serves as a basis for a ceasefire, but it does not offer a vision for what might follow.”

“. . . To put it simply, you can coexist with people without ever having to speak meaningfully with them. What holds society together is not just people who will tolerate each other, but people who will actually go beyond that, to provide the glue that holds society together.”

Another effort to get beyond mere tolerance of other religions comes from a group called the “Pluralism Project” sponsored by Harvard University. This program is both to study and promote the rapidly expanding presence of different religions in society. The Director of the Pluralism Project is Dr. Diane Eck, who has been a Professor of Religion at Harvard Divinity School for 25 years.

Through this program Dr. Eck makes a distinction between religious “diversity” and religious “pluralism.” The notion of religious diversity is a great deal like tolerance – it impassively acknowledges and accepts other religious traditions. Pluralism is different. Here is how she explains it:

“Pluralism is not just tolerance, but the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference. Tolerance is a necessary public virtue, but it does not require Christians and Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and ardent secularists to know anything about one another. Tolerance is too thin a foundation for a world of religious difference and proximity. It does nothing to remove our ignorance of one another, and leaves in place the stereotype, the half-truth, the fears that underlie old patterns of division and violence. In the world in which we live today, our ignorance of one another will be increasingly costly.

“Pluralism is based on dialogue. The language of pluralism is that of dialogue and encounter, give and take, criticism and self-criticism. Dialogue means both speaking and listening, and that process reveals both common understandings and real differences. Dialogue does not mean everyone at the “table” will agree with one another. Pluralism involves the commitment to being at the table -- with one’s commitments.”

If we Unitarian Universalists want to be part of shaping this new world where religious dialogue helps shape a better society, it is time to move beyond tolerance.

And to be honest, even “tolerance” has become much of a “sticky wicket” for Unitarian Universalists. It is high on our list of values, it is among our greatest aspirations, but is it one of those things in life that can be easy to talk about but difficult to practice – at least in the way we should practice it.

This sermon is not designed to give us UUs a pat on the back. It is more like a kick in the rear, to get us going, because we (and I include me in “we”) too often miss the mark of true tolerance. Too often I hear us speak in our churches as if we haven’t gone beyond the old meaning of “tolerance.” Too often tolerance for us continues to mean “putting up with” other religious traditions. More to the point, I sometimes cringe at hearing Unitarian Universalists tolerating others with a patronizing tone.

Many is the time that I’ve heard Unitarian Universalists say, in effect: “Our religion believes in tolerance, unlike your inferior religion. If you believed in tolerance too, you would think just like I do.” This is not always said in just so many words, but this is what is meant – and it is certainly what is being heard by those who are being judged as inferior.

And please know that I’m not immune from this tone and too often I catch myself participating in a style which I disapprove. I have the advantage, in sermons at least, of being able to read it over again before I say it publically.

But two recent incidents persuaded me to address this topic this morning. First, the previous issue of the UU World, the magazine of the Unitarian Universalist Association, carried a full page ad from a group called the “Freedom From Religion Foundation.” I’m familiar with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and I think it does some very good work. It is not affiliated with the Unitarian Universalists, though some of its membership is UU. The good they do is to point out when religious views are being unreasonably and irresponsibly imposed on others, and sometimes they do this through law suits.

Yes, they do good work. But the ad they ran in the UU World’s last issue was, in my view and many others, unnecessarily demeaning of anyone who holds any religious views. It is one thing to defend one’s position, it is another to attack the people, not just the ideas, of those who believe differently. It is almost a textbook definition of intolerance – to promote one’s own opinions by insulting those who hold different opinions.

The second incident was hearing a Unitarian Universalist speak publically about how tolerant our religious tradition is, and doing so not only by criticizing those traditions that are different, but also by portraying differences as “us” against “them.” All too often, the “us and them” talk suggests “them” as the Christians. When that is done, I believe it to be offensive for several reasons. It is offensive because there is a large number of Unitarian Universalist Christians, including in this congregation, who in some ways are historically even more “us” as any of us can be. It is also offensive because I know quite a few traditional non-UU Christians who seem to demonstrate the kind of respect toward us that we often claim as our special value. Finally, it is offensive because it feels to me a violation of the legacy of the Unitarians who, 450 years ago, declared through their King: Let “no one be reviled for their religion in this Kingdom by anyone”!

When surveys are made of public views of UUs – those who are familiar with us but not UU themselves – there are several stereotypes that exist. We are perceived by others as activist, committed to issues of justice and peace. We are praised for the positive impact we have on society over the course of history, and we are honored for those Unitarians and Universalists who over centuries were a force for good in the world. We are considered to be at the cutting edge of not only human rights issues, but religious philosophy and thought.

There are also negative stereotypes, and perhaps the most common one is that we are sometimes experienced to be snobs. And there are times, I believe, when that is painfully accurate. To be demeaning of other religions is to be intolerant. To be intolerant can mean being arrogant. To be arrogant can result in being a snob.

I don’t need to say any more about that concern. I’m all too aware of the times I have taken part in such speech. Still, I am proud of this Unitarian Universalist movement, both in the past and in the present. If I weren’t I wouldn’t be standing where I am today. I fully expect that our future will be as worthy and admirable as our past and present.

What I am hoping is that we re-visit some of our precious values with an eye toward updating and improving them. We have staked a claim on some of the most profound human values there are, and we have a responsibility to improve on the property and keep it up to date.

To me this seems obvious in the case of religious tolerance. The world needs something more than mere tolerance, and to be true to our spirit as a religious

As I said toward the beginning of this sermon, few people enjoy theological debates more than I do. I love the give and take of ideas, and look forward to respectful differences of opinion. So why is it that I can also say I “have no quarrel” with any religion which helps someone to be a better person and contribute to a better world?

I can say that because I aspire not just to be tolerant of people and their ideas, I hope to be able to respect the people and welcome the chance to struggle with their thinking and perhaps grow in my own religion. It is not something easy to do, and perhaps more often than not I fail. But in the world we encounter today, true religious tolerance is far more than just “putting up” with someone else’s religion, or just allowing others to sit at our table – it is genuinely welcoming all to the table, looking forward to learning from them and engaging respectfully on the mutual path to personal and spiritual growth.

READING from Diana Eck of Harvard’s “Pluralism Project.”

All of America’s diversity, old and new, does not add up to pluralism. “Pluralism” and “diversity” are sometimes used as if they were synonyms, but diversity is just plurality, plain and simple — splendid, colorful, perhaps threatening. Pluralism is the engagement that creates a common society from all that plurality. On the same street in Silver Spring, Maryland the Vietnamese Catholic church, the Cambodian Buddhist temple, the Ukranian Orthodox church, the Muslim Community Center, the Disciples of Christ church and the Mangal Mandir Hindu temple are all located in the same neighborhood. This is certainly diversity, but without any engagement or relationship with one another it may not be an instance of pluralism.

Pluralism is only one of the possible responses to this diversity. Some people may feel threatened by diversity, or even hostile to it. Throughout American history there have been groups that have expressed prejudice and intolerance toward newcomers of other religions and cultures. Other people may look forward to the day when all these differences fade into the landscape of a predominantly Christian culture. Clearly the pluralism that would engage people of different faiths and cultures in the creation of a common society is not a “given,” but an achievement.

From the historical perspective, the terms “exclusion,” “assimilation,” and “pluralism” suggest three different ways in which Americans have approached this widening cultural and religious diversity. For exclusionists, the answer to the tumultuous influx of cultural and religious diversity that seemed to threaten the very core civilization of America was to close the door, especially against the entry of the “alien,” whether Asians, Catholics, or Jews. For assimilationists, like those who envisioned America as a “melting pot,” the invitation to new immigrants was to come, but leave your differences and angularities behind as quickly as possible. Come and be like us, come and conform to a predominantly Anglo-Protestant culture. For the pluralists, like Horace Kallen in the early twentieth century, the American promise was to come as you are, with all your differences and angularities, pledged only to the common civic demands of American citizenship. Come and be yourself, contributing in your distinctive way to the “orchestra” of American civilization.

America’s religious diversity has . . . produced a new period of bridge-building, as diverse religious communities build unprecedented relationships with one another. A church and a mosque buy property together and build side by side in the San Francisco area. Councils of churches and synagogues gradually include mosques and temples, becoming interfaith councils. Today, they are beginning to constitute a new interreligious infrastructure in America’s cities and towns. There are interfaith dialogues, interfaith coalitions to fight hunger and homelessness, and interfaith Thanksgiving services. In school boards, there are real encounters, often heated, over issues of the proper role of religion in the public schools.

Today, as in every era, Americans are appropriating anew the meaning of “We, the people of the United States of America. . . .” What does it mean to say “we” in a multireligious America? How do “we” relate to one another, when that “we” includes Buddhist Americans, like the Hawaiian born Buddhist astronaut who died on the Challenger, Muslim Americans, like the mayor of a small town in Texas, and Sikh Americans, like the research scientist in Fairfax, Virginia. What, then, is pluralism?