Doubt is Not Our Product

August 3, 2008

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button.

I believe it was Lilly Tomlin who said that “no matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.”

I tend to fall on the optimistic side of the spectrum, but this week I, and I know many of you here too, were hit with a very harsh version of reality. This week, individuals in one of our communities had their foundations shaken. Yet again, a location of worship, sought for its safety and comfort was turned into a place of violence. A community in celebration has become a community in mourning.

As many of you might know, on the morning of last Sunday, July 27th, a man walked into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville with a shotgun hidden in a guitar case. He entered the sanctuary, and during a performance by the congregation’s children of a song from their musical, Annie, he began shooting at those in attendance. At this point, two adults have died as a result of the attack, and a handful of others remain wounded. Some notes in the shooter’s car gave voice to his anger at the liberal community for our views and specifically inclusion of the GLBT community, but overall, this appears to be the action of a very sick man whose frustrations found a focal point in one of our churches.

As human beings, it is natural to want to make meaning out of a situation like this, but when things appear so senseless, communities of faith can very quickly become communities of doubt. As Unitarian Universalists, we’re often quite comfortable bringing our doubt with us to church and our religious lives. We’re usually quite proud of this fact, and rightly so. However, I think that when we talk about bringing our doubt with us, what we mean most of the time is a skeptical stance toward any creed or doctrine, a questioning mind about the details of any scientific, philosophical, or religious truth.

But the events of this week highlight realities that many in our community bring with them every week into our sanctuary – “doubts and questions that run so deep, it challenges our very being.” It has not taken me long in ministry to realize that in any gathering within our walls, someone is asking questions like these: “Will I make it through tonight? “With all that is happening in the world, how can we make any difference?” “How could anyone love me?” “Do I have what it takes to be a good person again?”

Overall there is so much evidence of good in the world, so many things that go right that we hardly even notice. Just the simple act of getting in our car and driving across town involves thousands of acts of social cooperation, and this very superficial example highlights that our lives are filled with this reality. Yet in the face of all this some events can shake us to the core. I’m sure that most everyone here has experienced something like this, I know I have. Some personal failure, some betrayal, an accident, the loss of someone we love that threatens to call into question our assumption about a good life.

One writer on doubt is the author, David Michaels. In his recent book, Doubt is Our Product, Michaels explains how easy it is for one action or thoughtfully placed question to cast doubt on what we believe to be true, even in the midst of much evidence. He explains that in modern history, our society has been unaware for the most part that there is a doubt industry existing right under our noses. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, when the dangers of cigarettes were becoming more of a public issue, tobacco companies started to hire scientists and spokespersons whose entire job was to create doubt in the minds of the public that cigarettes were actually harmful, that what evidence was telling them was true. Michaels took the title of his book from a cigarette company memo. It reads like this:

“Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the body of fact that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.” David Michaels’ book is about how this strategy today is being used again today in science, business, and politics. Some of the same people have been hired again to challenge he science of evolution or global climate change. He says that the motivation behind this creation of doubt is explicit and simple. If we are focused on the controversy, if we spend all our time debating the facts, we are involved in very little action. Many people’s best interest rests in our doubt about ourselves and what we know.

We have been fed doubt, not just this week in events that shake us, but our whole lives. So much of our current consumer society thrives off us doubting who we are as individuals. We’re meant to wonder if we’re good looking enough to attract a partner (I’d better buy something to fix that), wonder if we are smart enough to land that job (I’d better buy something to fix that), wonder if we have enough stuff to look to our friends and family as if we really have value (better buy something to fix that). Much of this society feeds us doubt in the hope of making us find our trust in something we can buy, not something that will last. As one of my favorite musical artists says, “Making you think you’re crazy is a billion dollar industry.”

But we know that in real life no product you can buy can bring back a loved one; no thing you can buy can erase an experience of trauma or restore hope to someone for whom life has become a threat. And so, we gather together in a community like this to offer something different, a different “product.” But what we offer in a place like this is certainly no set of easy answers.

In a reading in the back of our gray hymnal, the Rev. Robert Weston is quoted as saying, “Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the attendant of truth – doubt is the touchstone of truth; it is an acid which eats away the false – it is a testing of belief – those that would silence doubt are filled with fear,” he says, “their houses are built on shifting sands…” I do think that Robert Weston is correct. However, I don’t know about you, but it’s easier for me to praise doubt when I have the luxury of ambiguity, when things seem easy or simple, when my friends and family aren’t suffering, when I am not scared.

But what do we do with such doubt when we encounter events like those that happened in Knoxville last weekend? To me, Weston’s reading points out that doubt is NOT meant to be a final product of anything, but a part of the process, a tool. We use doubt, he says, in order to find trust in something else. We UU’s are fairly good at discovering what it is we doubt. But what is it that we here will choose to trust?

The Rev. Forest Church had this to say about our religious foundations: “We Unitarian Universalists have inherited a magnificent theological legacy. In a sweeping answer to creeds that divide the human family, Unitarianism proclaims that we spring from a common source; Universalism, that we share a common destiny.” In other words, we’re all in this together.

My friends, let us not doubt our power and value as a people gathered here. Do not think that because we do not give easy answers here that we do not give something of value. We have given and will continue to give a voice for justice, a home for inclusion, and loving community that does indeed save lives. So many people have been told they do not matter in this world ? that they do not deserve the love of someone’s god, or any love at all. No matter what, we will continue to build a community that strives to offer more and more love to any and all who would seek it.

People often ask me what consolation Unitarian Universalism has to offer those facing sickness, death, or fear if we have no version of God or an afterlife we all agree on. We have seen a part of the answer to this question lived this week.

Annette Marquis, the District Executive for the Thomas Jefferson District of the UUA, where the shooting took place, said that in her experience of seeing our communities come together in the wake of the tragedy that she had “never been so proud of being a Unitarian Universalist.”

She watched our values being lived as congregational and denominational leaders joined in a response effort, partnered with the outpouring of help from other faiths, and ministered to the pain and fear that was so present in the children and adults affected that day.

She was proud, as am I, that our hopeful faith does not retreat when the hardest of times are present. During the candlelight vigil held in Knoxville on Monday evening, UUA President, Bill Sinkford, said this, “None of us can allow our pain and anger to keep us from living our faith, from welcoming all people, from standing on the side of love. We will not let that happen. We will continue our commitment to welcoming all”

We have been taught so many times what to doubt. What is it that we will trust? Once again, I think that life has shown itself worthy of our faith, worthy of our trust in community and in love. In the response to one man’s act of violence, we saw so many stand up in courage. Even in the midst of so much violence and confusion, the members of the Tennessee Valley Church lived their values.

One of the individuals who died in the attack was said to have placed himself in front of the shooter’s weapon, shielding others, and sacrificing his life for theirs. When it would have been so easy, so understandable, to respond in violence to the attacker, members of that congregation restrained him until the police arrived.

There is no question that for this brave group of people, our liberal religious values withstood a tremendous test. In response to one act of violence, thousands have gathered in solidarity, millions expressed their compassion and good will. We can trust our human connection in this world.

There are many events of human suffering in the world, but this week, members of our religious community especially took pause because in a way, this hit so close to home. Some members of our congregation have friends and family who were present for the attack. Their sanctuary, their gathering in community, and their worship feel so familiar to our own.

Yet this single event serves also as a reminder of our place deep within the human condition and never outside of it – a place where, yes, violence and fear exist in a very real way, yet they do so alongside community and hope. This is not simply bright-eyed liberal idealism, but a fact, a reality we have seen this week and in so many other places.

We are reminded that it is our human experience that is familiar, that with fresh perspective we might see our minor disagreements and labels for exactly what they are, minor. While we would certainly never wish for THIS type of opportunity for reflection, it calls us to see that the work of our lives and the work of our religious communities serve something far larger than ourselves. We can trust that this is true.

We know that there is more to life than the labels we wear, and that one act of violence is not the end of hope. We know that, as a colleague once said in a sermon, “life wants to live,” that creation was not something that happened once long ago being corrupted further and further, but rather that the great story of the universe, the evolving, emergent creative force that has brought us into being continues to create right now – “in the cells of our bodies, in our families, our communities, in our response to life and death.”

We may trust that all humanity and indeed all life is as interconnected as we say it is, literally tying us all to the same ancestors, the same family. As we said in our last hymn, “what touches one affects us all.”

We know that violence will continue, that bad things will happen again to liberals and conservatives, to Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs, to people of every color and creed. Yet we also know that communities of every sort will continue to join together and form lives of meaning and care.

Some have this week been left in doubt about when and where we can be safe in practicing our religion. Even a place called a ‘sanctuary? became a home for violence. The events in Knoxville certainly affected many outside of that congregation, but this was one incident, and we can trust that we are as safe today as we were last week, as we have ever been. We are as secure as anyone can be who professes to live a life of radical love and inclusion. And what we read in the paper or see on TV is certainly not always helpful in making me feel safe. Trust in life does not sell papers or increase ratings. Hope will not keep us in front of our TV’s watching coverage; hope would have us living our lives and the values we proclaim.

Nothing is ever certain, and there are things in life far beyond our control. But, a Unitarian Universalists, we know that how we respond is up to us. As First Church’s own Mary MacGregor put it this week in an interview, “How can we close the doors of our churches? We can’t do that. We have to have our doors open.”

My friends, we do have to have our doors open, not only our physical doors, but those which leave us open to continual love and trust in this world.

I am suggesting something a bit unusual in a UU church – I’m suggesting that we give up some of our doubts. I’m asking you to give up doubting that your life is sacred just as it is, to give up doubting that communities such as this can change lives in radical ways, and to give up doubting that in the midst of confusion and pain, life is still precious and good.

Let us have our doubt, as Robert Weston said, so that we may trust in something else, too. Let us have doubt, so that we may have faith. This is not a faith like many associate with that word; this is not a blind faith which would ask you to believe something without evidence. The type of faith we have to offer is that of the theologian, Paul Tillich, who asserted that faith is a verb, the “act of being ultimately concerned.”

In this faith, we join together in devoting our worship and our lives to that which is worthy of devotion, and nothing less. Let our faith be in life itself, faith that love exists, that we know it to exist here on earth and can make it real in our very lives.

Let’s continue to bring a cynic’s mind to creeds and doctrines, but friends, please carry no doubt about the potential of human care, the sacred nature of all creation, and that in an evolving universe, there is potential around every step – or as we say in one of our hymns, “there is more love somewhere.”

The children of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church expressed something similar when they gathered on Monday evening during a candlelight service and sang the song they had been practicing this summer. As rain poured outside and congregants held candles high, the children sang, “The sun will come out tomorrow.”

We know that it will.

May we continue to realize that while we welcome doubt into this place with open arms, doubt is not OUR product. Our products, our ends, are faith, hope, and love, with which we will all continue to build our beloved community on earth.

When we reflect on events such as these and so many others in the world, may we be called to recognize the preciousness of our life and others. Let us live and love as if it is our only chance.

What better time than now?

Amen.