WHAT'S NEXT?
by Forrest Church
November 7, 2004
I'm sure the great majority of you were as delighted as I was to wake up Wednesday morning to the happy news that . . . Willie Randolph would be the new manager of the New York Mets. Living as we do at the epicenter of the oh-so-blue nation, for many (though certainly not all) of us, the rest of Wednesday's news offered little to cheer about.
I began thinking about what I would say to you this morning at about 5 PM on Tuesday. Exit polls suggested that John Kerry was going to win quite handily. Privileged with this insider information, I addressed myself to the daunting challenge of tempering the pride—never an attractive attribute—of the sizable majority among you who would still be crowing by Sunday morning about Senator Kerry's victory. As a good pastor should, I would then seek (striking a tempered and balanced tone) to succor the wounds of those whose hopes were disappointed by the president's defeat. This particular sermon now resides in that little trash can in the lower right-hand corner of my brain, deposited in the growing file of sermons I thought better of delivering.
We are, by the way, a politically more diverse congregation than the majority here may assume. Last Sunday, as you came through the line, I counted four Bush, one Nader, and eight Kerry buttons. It goes without saying, however—and by a larger majority than that my unscientific poll might suggest—that this congregation and its ministers are politically more liberal than the nation as a whole. Given where we live—on the bright blue margin of those red-hued Rorshack maps we've been fretting over—this is hardly surprising. Even less so given that, whatever our politics may be with respect to economic or foreign policy, Unitarians tend to embrace a liberal code of values on the hot-button social issues that divide (or otherwise unite) the members of many other churches.
By midnight Tuesday it stood to reason, therefore, that I would have a lot less pride to temper here this morning and a lot more pain to assuage. Over the course of the week, my task was clarified, though not made simpler. The Bush supporters I spoke to were not, in fact, exultant, but rather thoughtful and somewhat guarded about the nation's future (if less apprehensive than they might otherwise have been had the president lost). There are many congregations across the country where my pride sermon would fit the bill today, but, even for the victorious minority among us, this is not one of them.
The same cannot be said for my comfort sermon. The Kerry supporters (or Bush opponents) I have spoken to or counseled over the past few days are crushed by this election, almost to a person more despondent than any congregant I recall encountering during the week following the six previous presidential elections that took place during the span of my ministry here. It is to you, therefore, that I address my remarks this morning. To you, and also to myself.
Before getting to the heart of my sermon—on the place of moral values in this election—let me make three brief points: one demographic, one historical, and one civic.
Two weeks ago, I shared evidence that the nation is not actually as divided as the stark representations of red versus blue may suggest. A clear majority of us nationwide support a "pro-choice, but . . ." stance on abortion, with only 16% of the American people opposed to abortion under every circumstance. More remarkably, given how recently the issue has been raised, if you combine the support for legalizing Gay marriage with that for legalizing Gay unions, as clear a majority support equal rights for Gay couples under law (almost 60% of all Americans). On economic issues, the American public favors balancing the budget over tax breaks for the rich, supports bipartisan efforts to reform and secure our entitlement programs, and is concerned about both the state of public education and the increasing costs of health care. And yet, there was only one moment during the course of the entire election when the ground we all stood on seemed to be common ground, rather than ground being fought over by opposing camps. Significantly enough, that moment came during the day after the election was over. Both Senator Kerry in defeat and President Bush in victory were far more appealing and generous spirited than either had appeared during the long months of battle. I wonder. Is it too much to hope that one day a leader will arise who will dare to unite us for our advantage rather than stoop to divide us for theirs? I mention this only to suggest, for those who feel disenfranchised, that digging deeper trenches and developing more effective weapons to ensure that next time not we but our political enemies will be vanquished may serve neither the nation's best interest, nor our own.
My second brief point is historical. Throughout the nation's history, as pointed out by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and other historians, presidential politics follows in somewhat predictable cycles. Once the pendulum swings too far in one direction, almost indubitably it corrects itself and then swings equally far in the other. In my view, had President Bush been defeated, this process would have been interrupted, leading to a very short, almost inconsequential, swing before the pendulum continued its rightward arc.
For instance, let's say that the Bush Doctrine as exercised in Iraq and elsewhere proves as impracticable as it now to many of us appears, with Iraq a deepening morass and the world, in fact, less safe from terrorism, not more. And let's say that the president's economic program, powered predominantly by tax cuts, leads to ever-greater deficits, draining energy from the recovery and hampering hopes for reform. Given the afterburner effect and a Republican congress that would drive Bush polices well into a Kerry term, President Kerry would have been blamed for whatever happened in Iraq and to the economy on his watch. Not only would nothing really change, but after four frustrating years, with Kerry the obvious scapegoat, the pendulum would almost surely swing again, this time even harder to the right. With the single, admittedly momentous, exception of what well may happen to the Supreme Court, the nation may actually correct its present course more quickly with the Bush victory than it might have with a Kerry one.
My third brief point is civic. Here I ask those of you who have nothing good to say about our president to suspend your disbelief for a moment. I ask you to hope, for all our sakes, that his policies succeed. Though from your perspective unlikely, it is not impossible that, on balance, they will. Given time further to develop, the Bush Doctrine, though tested by many setbacks, may ultimately yield a free Iraq. Perhaps then, with democracies planted there and in Afghanistan, the world will turn on it axis away from tyranny toward freedom, with Arab populations more beguiled by freedom's promise than seduced by their hatred for freedom's greatest champion. And perhaps—we can only hope—the president's economic program will begin paying dividends as well, with an ever-more-prosperous economy driving a full enough recovery that deficits will start going down and other domestic problems can more effectively be addressed.
Those of you who identify with the Democratic party will still find many reasons to distinguish yourselves from the Republicans, especially on social issues. Nonetheless, however deep your doubts, we have only one president. It is our civic duty and in the nation's best interest to pray that this president's major foreign and economic initiatives succeed.
This leads me to my final (and major) thought as we sort through the tea leaves on the bottom of last's Tuesday's cup. According to the exit polls, "moral values" was the single largest concern among the electorate and a determining factor in the re-election of the president. Nearly a quarter of the electorate cited moral values as their principal concern. Some 80% of these people apparently voted for President Bush.
What are people thinking about when they express a preeminent concern for moral values? Judging from election rhetoric alone, when we unwrap the moral values package, surprising few moral values seem to be included within it: abortion; late-term abortion in particular; gay marriage, and gay rights in general; perhaps prayer in the public schools, God in the Pledge of Allegiance, and the Ten Commandments in the Courthouse. When it comes to the larger ethical discussion—broadly contained in the prophet Micah's mandate to "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God," this handful of so called moral values barely scratches the ethical surface.
To give but one example, a majority of the self-designated values' voters are opposed to stem-cell research. One can easily pose a moral counter argument. Which position reflects a higher moral value? Opposition to the destruction for scientific use of the cells of frozen embryos (which will otherwise in almost every instance ultimately be destroyed anyway)? Or unfettered medical research in search of cures for diseases that affect or will one day affect perhaps half the population? The latter, in my view, is the pro-life position. It may be possible to abstract a narrow case for life out of the former position, but life as we know it—our own lives and the lives of our loved ones—certainly is not thereby served.
I do not suggest that self-identified "moral values" voters are insincere. Quite the contrary. Only that the moral values politicians have been harping so successfully on—with resonant pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-family, pro-God rhetoric—themselves each raise a new set of ethical questions. To be fully pro-life or pro-family, for instance, expands the moral compass well beyond the narrow circle in which embryonic stem-cell research is addressed or even the wider circle respecting abortion itself. This circle may include protecting every child with adequate health insurance, providing every mother with pre-natal care, extending head start, reinstituting after-school programs, and a host of other social issues that directly effect the well-being of children and their families.
That said, the Republicans have clearly struck a nerve in the electorate by focusing their attention on a few hot-button moral issues. The near record turnout last Tuesday was not it seems, as predicted by the pundits, predominantly driven by new young voters concerned about getting jobs and outraged by Iraq. Apparently, it was prompted as much, if not more, by Protestant Evangelicals and conservative Catholics in the American heartland motivated to protect their values against what they perceive to be the callowness and danger of amoral secular elitists.
Here I offer not comfort but a word of caution. It is far too easy for sophisticated secularists and the rest of us who thrive in the culture of our privileged enclaves to parody and dismiss the concerns of these highly motivated and deeply religious voters in the heartland. My fear is this. As long as we continue to think in terms of red people and blue people—of two cultures inextricably at odds—the gulf will continue to widen, with a majority on the two coasts intellectually isolated from the moral pulse of this nation.
Should we pander to bigotry? No, of course not. There can be no compromise with respect to a woman's right to choose or the continuing struggle for equal rights for all Americans, regardless of their color, gender, or sexual orientation. But we must not be tempted to demean, parody, and condemn those who hold moral beliefs that differ from our own. These people are not ignorant. They are not yokels. They are citizens guided by narrow religious and moral values who, quite understandably, are frightened by the influence (which we may not credit but they deeply feel) of East coast and West coast elites, whom they believe (in some cases correctly) are not guided by a moral compass. With respect to the social debate that is raging in this nation, our task—and here, I suspect, we are united by religion, even where otherwise we may be divided by politics—is not to change our values or pander to prejudice, but to express our values—which I believe to be in the highest sense both true American and true religious values—more persuasively. Rather than fighting a defensive, rear-guard battle, we must instead tap into the soul of our nation and our faith. We must witness to the founders' belief in liberty and equality, to the prophets' call for justice and mercy, and to the great commandments of Jesus—love to God and love to neighbor. With history and scripture on our lips, we must testify from a loftier place that no narrow civic creed begins to express the highest values expressed by national and Biblical writ.
The truth is, we all should rank moral values at the top of our list of priorities. Moral values should encompass and instruct every position we embrace—on economic justice, on international policy, on civil rights and human rights, on everything we care about. The language of morality should inform our every argument. It should elevate the level of our discourse. It should chasten our rhetoric. In short, what we believe must spring as eloquently from our hearts as it does from our minds.
I speak here both as a religious liberal and a patriotic American. I speak out of the tradition our founders established (and national prophets extended) of one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. We mustn't permit this nation to split into an Unum party and a pluribus party. Those of us who are frightened by the direction our nation is taking have a moral responsibility to recapture flag, family and Bible from the religious right, not to claim them for ourselves alone, but in order that each of these national and spiritual treasures may again be shared by all.
If we dare to expand the compass of our imagination, this should not be all that difficult. By its very nature, of all voices, a true, encompassing liberal voice should be pro-Bible, pro-flag, pro-family, pro-"moral values." It should address not just the human mind, but speak from heart to heart of liberty and justice for all, of love to God and neighbor, of E pluribus unum (out of many one). It should inspire with moral vision the soaring ideal of mutual respect under law and the highest of all human moral values, loving kindness—without hatred, beyond the taint of bigotry—for all God's children. Its authentic timber should register not in the mind alone. It must issue from the innermost depth of our souls.
No one can take our country away from us. But we can give it away by failing to rekindle the beacon of transcendent moral values that guided the nation's founders and inspired its prophets. If, in our anger, bitterness, and disdain we instead pledge to fight back harder until one day we defeat our enemies as they have defeated us, not only will the nation's soul be in jeopardy; our own souls will be in jeopardy as well.
Amen. I love you. And may God bless us all.