Liberal Religion, Part 1

25 September 2005

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button.

NOTE: This is the first of a several-part piece on the history and essence of liberal religion as a worldwide human creation dating back nearly three millennia.

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH:

Evangelizing Liberal Religion,

David Borden

Good morning. My Name is David Borden and I am here to share my thoughts on Evangelizing Liberal Religion. As you know, the numbers of Unitarian Universalists have stayed stagnant for some time. Meanwhile, evangelical Christian groups have seen an increase in numbers. Why is that?

I believe there are two reasons and we should learn from them:

1) Religions that grow pursue their faith with vigor.

2) Religions that grow have members that can articulate their main beliefs to potential members.

I did a bit of comparison shopping on the web. I found thousands of evangelical Christian sites. The first one I looked at was called evangelize.com. At the bottom of the home page there was a little box with a counter furiously running up numbers. It professed to be the number of people who had died since I had opened the page. Unfortunately, it stated, “the vast majority of them are going to hell.”

Another part of the site had a menu of 27 lessons to read and then act upon. Among the ones that caught my attention were:

-Your Legal Rights and witnessing in public

-100 responses to hard questions

-Use Halloween to win souls

And my personal favorite:

-Throw an evangelistic Super Bowl Party!

Now the idea of winning converts during the Janet Jackson half-time show may be ridiculous, but it perfectly illustrates to what lengths the Christian Right will go in order to get their message out.

I also searched “evangelical liberal religion” and “evangelical Unitarian Universalism.” I got very few hits. Perhaps because these are oxymorons. I tried to read some of these pages, but my mind kept wandering. I wanted to get back to evangelize.com and watch the tally of the damned. I wanted to read about that Superbowl Party. What was wrong with this picture? Why were these UU articles about the need for evangelizing so boring?

I was telling my wife, Tamara, about this experience. She got right to the point and asked, “Why do you even care?”

Good question, I thought. And it is the question we all need to ask ourselves before we hit the street corners with soapboxes and bullhorns..

I care because I don’t wish to live in a world in which irrationality is a virtue, thinking is a crime, and religion is used to shackle people instead of setting them free.

So, what is the alternative? Why, Liberal Religion, of course. But what is Liberal Religion? It is when the Buddha said that salvation is to be found in the realization of truth. It is in Islam when it is said that giving alms is good, but giving anonymously is divine. It is the Tao Te Ching when it is said that only difficult things are worth pursuing.

But my favorite example of Liberal Religion is Jesus when he said to turn the other cheek. Many people take this as a call to pacifism. But I don’t think so. It is a call to subversion of the established social order. My wife and I lived in Morocco for 5 years. In Islamic countries you learn to do everything with your right hand because your left is reserved for less glamorous duties, and, thus, unclean. Imagine for a moment that you are a filthy commoner in need of a good slapping by a high-class gentleman. He is going to hit you with his left hand. You have no recourse because he is powerful. Striking back would only get you flogged mercilessly or killed. Both of these outcomes are counterproductive to your cause. Your only recourse is your wit. Turn your other cheek. Make him slap you next time with his right hand, his clean hand. Look the powerful dead in the eye and make him defile himself or yield.

That is what it means to be a practitioner of Liberal Religion.

Our call is one of sedition. It is not maintaining the status quo. It is about changing the world. Nothing worth doing is easy. If your religion is not worth fighting for, or proclaiming from the tree tops, you need to find a new one. Liberal Religion should not only be about guest speakers and green sanctuaries. It should be about your very soul and how you wish to live your life and in what world you wish to live it.

Your call today is to go out there and get slapped.

SERMON: Liberal Religion, Part I

Between about 2200 and 2800 years ago, in locations all over the world, liberal religion was born. It was and remains the hardest, most honest, and most liberating religious path the world has ever known, though it is not for the frightened.

Liberal religion isn’t small like a denomination or even a religious tradition. It is at the heart of all honest religion in all times and places. It is as universal, as honest and as infinite as anything on earth that involves humans.

Even though it wasn’t born until a few thousand years ago, it is really older than God, older than all the gods, this liberal religion tradition. It has been served under many names in most of the world’s great religions both Eastern and Western. Yet the various kinds of liberal religion have more in common with each other than any of them have with the literal religions in their own tradition. So liberal religion offers ready-made bridges of understanding and friendship to all the world’s people.

When a liberal style of religion is being served with honesty and courage – both are required – you don’t have to check your brain at the door; you don’t have to check your heart at the door, either. You can bring all of you inside, including your doubts and your flaws. Since it is honest, it need not fear questions. And in no liberal religion on earth are you expected to be perfect. They aren’t about saving you from sin; they’re about recognizing your innate blessings, and helping you to become more whole, to live a life of greater integrity and authenticity, by showing you the fairly narrow and hard path of integrity and authenticity.

The insights of liberal religion can, if you are open to them, replace our tendency to judge others with our capacity to love them. And it contains the truth that can set you free. But these truths of liberal religion are dangerous to discuss in their naked form, and almost never are. Usually, they are clothed in the many languages of myth, or mystery and miracle, because the message feels so much more welcoming when it comes in friendly costume. But sometimes, it comes naked.

We often say we want the straight truth, not stories, and we often say that’s what liberal religion is about. I’d say no, that’s what logical positivism or sterile mechanics are about. The truth that can set us free, I think, is usually a bit different. And while liberal religion may have the best handle on that truth, it often has the worst selection of vehicles for that truth, since we are often not very good at learning the important languages of symbol, metaphor and myth. So let’s begin.

Hinduism

Twenty-five centuries or more ago, the Upanishads appeared in ancient Hinduism, and they signaled the birth of the liberal spirit in that tradition. They said “Do you sense the vast creative power of the universe? The power that creates all things, sustains all things, and claims them all in the end? Well, you don’t have to bow down or feel insignificant, because you are part of that power. You are part of the infinite and the eternal, just as you are. If you deny God, they say, you deny yourself. If you affirm God, you affirm yourself. Today, we sometimes like to say we are made of stardust; it’s a kind of rational, semi-scientific attempt at a spiritual perspective. But the ancient Hindus were way ahead of us. Oh, they would say, but you have so completely understated the facts. We are not merely made of the dust and atoms of stars which exploded long ago; we are made of the unimaginable powers that created the stars, and which destroyed them.

And so they write, “Seek to know him from whom all beings have come, by whom they all live, and unto whom they all return. He is Brahman.” (Taittiriya Upanishad, p. 110)

And what is this Brahman thing about? What is it made of? It sounds like another costume for the Western God: some kind of Fellow giving orders. But it isn’t, not at all. Here’s what they wrote, more than twenty-five centuries ago: “Brahman is joy: for from joy all beings have come, by joy they all live, and unto joy they all return.” (“Taittiriya Upanishad,” p. 111)

Can you feel how much more healthy and whole and life-affirming this is than most that we hear from Western religions?

But Hinduism offers more than just this. It also offers you a roadmap of how to navigate this life here and now – the one where you do have consciousness. It’s about karma. The rules are very simple.

As you act in your life, so you become. If you do good, you become good; if you do evil, you become evil. By pure actions you becomes pure; by evil actions you becomes evil. (p. 140)

So the power you need is within you, an essential part of you. It includes both the power to create and destroy. And then, when Hinduism adds reincarnation, you have all the time you need to work through your karma. It sounds, and has been heard as, very comfortably wrapped in mythology, very friendly. Like the Western script, it looks like you never really have to die; you just live forever in one way or another.

But once in awhile, they would say it straight out and tell the naked truth. In the Upanishad considered the most authoritative of all, after talking about this atman-Brahman stuff and the reincarnations, the author slips in this amazing line. Just for the record, he’s saying, “there is no consciousness after death.” The other character this author created is stunned, amazed that after all these stories about reincarnation, eternity and the rest, he’s saying No, you’re done after one. Your memories, experiences, loves, disappear from all consciousness when you die. This is it. (Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad, p. 132)

That’s about as naked as the truth gets, but throughout the ages most have not found much comfort in it. It may be true, but it isn’t a very interesting story, and mostly we’d rather have good stories to live within.

Buddhism

Buddhism was born out of Hinduism about 2500 years ago, and it has a thousand stories, myths, images – something for everyone. You can see today’s Buddhists lining up in temples throughout Thailand paying the monks to make lucky charm bracelets for them, like the Rosary beads many Catholics use, or the St. Christopher statues they used to have on the dashboards of their car as supernatural lucky charms. They have the costumes, the saffron robes, the shaved heads, begging bowls, and a hundred other props that give Buddhism its rich tapestry of colors and customs. And for most Buddhists, reincarnation still means, as it does for most Hindus, another life – with consciousness.

But under the wonderful myths and images, Buddhism tells the naked truth more bluntly than any religion in the world. Our suffering in life, the Buddha said, comes from the fact that we live in illusions. And waking up – Buddhism is about waking up – means outgrowing our need for illusions, including our comforting ones.

And on what can you lean? What do the Buddhists give you at their most blunt level? A famous story tells it.

A student came to a Buddhist monastery to live and study. He was very anxious about finding the center of life, that on which he could lean, when he saw the Teacher of the order. “Tell me, Master,” he pleaded, “What is the Buddha?” The master studied him for a second, and said “The Buddha is the mind.”

For ten years, the young man studied everything about the mind that he could. He gained a lot of knowledge, certain that somehow this knowledge would add up to a foundation of rock on which he could stand securely forevermore. His anxiety went away. And ten years later, he returned for a second meeting with the Master. “Master,” he said, “ten years ago you told me the Buddha was the Mind, and I have learned much pursuing this great insight. Can you now give me a more advanced lesson?”

“Yes,” said the Master: “There is no Mind, and there is no Buddha.”

“But then why did you tell me there was?”

“I told you that because your baby was crying. I said it to help stop your frightened baby from crying. Now you are older, and are ready for the truth: there is no Buddha, there is no Mind.”

In other words, there is nothing to seek that will make a foundation, because no foundation is needed. You are here, you are now, this is it. Accept it as a gift. Accept yourself as a gift. Stop looking for something special, something hidden. This is it, and like it or not, it is enough. No illusions are needed. There is no consciousness after death; the quality of our life is determined most of all by how we live, and it is enough.

It’s a stark message, but then like the Master in this story, Buddhism offers enough myths and stories to keep your “baby” from crying, so that everyone can find a path that fits them. You like the naked truth? Fine. You prefer the story with the Buddha and the Mind? Also fine.

Taoism

About the same time the Buddha lived, the great Chinese sage Lao Tzu was writing his Tao te Ching. Here too is the voice of liberal religion, done pretty starkly, though with more comfort than just hearing that there’s nothing and it’s ok.

“When you realize there is nothing lacking,” Lao Tzu said, “the whole world belongs to you.” (The Tao te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell [Harper Perenniel, 1988], #44) This is like the Hindu saying that there’s nothing after death but the impersonal recycling of atoms.

But our comfort in life is realizing that there is a simple Way that things run, and that our life will be happiest if we are in harmony with this Way, or Tao.

“The great Way is easy, yet people prefer the side paths,” Lao Tzu writes. “Be aware when things are out of balance. Stay centered within the Tao. When rich speculators prosper while farmers lose their land; when government officials spend money on weapons instead of cures; when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible while the poor have nowhere to turn – all this is robbery and chaos. It is not in keeping with the Tao.” (#53) No, that’s not from yesterday’s editorial page; it’s from 2500 years ago, from a completely different culture, but arising from exactly the same kind of human nature and timeless human condition.

“Let the Tao be present in your life and you will become genuine. Let it be present in your family and your family will flourish. Let it be present in your country and your country will be an example to all countries in the world. Let it be present in the universe and the universe will sing. How do I know this is true? By looking inside myself.” (#54) There’s that message again: inside, outside, all connected, and it is enough, right here and now.

“All streams flow to the sea because it is lower than they are. Humility gives it its power.” (#66) Jesus would have recognized this wisdom immediately.

And finally, one of the finest teachings in any of the world’s religions:

“What is a good man but a bad man’s teacher? What is a bad man but a good man’s job? If you don’t understand this, you will get lost, however intelligent you are. It is the great secret.” (#27)

All of this is the spirit of liberal religion in all times and places, because it is about how to live wisely and well in the only human life we will have.

Confucius

K’ung-fu-tzu lived about 551-479 BC. Like all these paths, Confucianism deserves – and has been given – hundreds of volumes rather than a few paragraphs. Some feel it is not really a religion because there are no deities or prescribed rituals. But it does belong in the tradition of liberal religion, which is concerned with living wisely and well.

One of the old Master’s many sayings that springs from his recognition of the power of authenticity is, “A man should practice what he preaches, but a man should also preach what he practices.” We know the first half – but to do the second half requires that we’re actually living within the authenticity we preach.

Some years ago after speaking about some of these topics of existential religion – liberal religion – a man came up to me excitedly and said “You need to read my book!” He gave me his card; he was an emeritus professor of Chinese studies at Columbia named William deBary. His book was on a subject I would never have picked off the shelf: 13th Century Neo-Confucianism.

Yet he was right. For the central concept in this era’s Confucianism was what they called “living for one’s self” – where the correct “self” was the larger one consisting in ourselves, our society, and the art of interrelationships that can make our social life smooth and harmonious. One more path and dimension to living more wisely and well here and now.

And I’m reminded of another Confucian story I read long ago from a source I’ve completely forgotten. It was about some sophisticated students who had paid good money to study with an internationally renowned Master. They expected the story without “tigers,” especially from such a man as this. Yet in his first talk with them, he repeatedly mentioned a kind of “magic” on which he said everything depended.

This was outrageous, and very un-Confucian, they thought! With some edge to his voice, one student dared to challenge the Master, explaining that they were not children, nor were they superstitious peasants, and that if he was going to use a word as old-fashioned as “magic,” they would greatly appreciate it if he might explain what he meant, in a way they could understand and respect.

“Ah,” said the teacher, perhaps not expecting this challenge. “Well then, we can do that. But it is not a quick matter, and my throat is dry.” Then, turning to a student sitting near him, he said “I wonder if you would get me a glass of water?”

When the student returned, the Master took a long drink of water, set the glass down, and said “That was magic.” He did my bidding, without being coerced, without feeling demeaned or ordered about. He did it without threats, because he wanted to, and both he and I – and I suspect most of you – felt good about that asking for and getting a glass of water. No force, no trickery, just an honest and respectful request, and it was done quickly and happily. That is magic. And without learning that kind of magic, our lives together will be strained, even dismal.”

But the “magic” wasn’t supernatural or otherworldly. It was the mastery of the kind of respectful authenticity that make all social interactions fluid and gratifying. It is in complete harmony with the kind of “Way” that Taoism is about. It is liberal religion without the tigers but with the magic.

The Greeks

Plato brought this spirit into Western civilization with all of his teachings on how to live wisely and well – and again, he did it without using any gods. We were as complete as we needed, and just needed to learn how to pursue what is good rather than lesser things. You can hear the lessons of Karma here, or seeking the Tao, the Way.

We could go on through all of Western history from Plato to the present, and find many more thinkers, both religious and secular, who carried this same spirit. And I’ll do some of that other times. But for now, I want to comment on something I’ve been hinting at, and make it explicit.

Like all religions, the liberal style comes with a choice of languages. You can either hear the straight truth, stripped of all its poetry, imaginative stories and myths, or you can take it wrapped in myths, which give a warmer, more friendly form to it. Though to do that, we must learn to be mythically musical, to learn these most fertile and imaginative vehicles for expressing truths that pass understanding. And we’re often not good at that, so we sound unimaginative and sterile to those from richer traditions.

I’m reminded of Bruno Bettleheim’s classic book The Uses of Enchantment, in which he explains that the role fairy tales play in a child’s development is to give them pre-rational or sub-rational structures for integrating powerful emotions, years before they are mature enough to integrate them rationally. So a “wicked stepmother” offers an acceptable channel for a thought unthinkable to a five-year-old: that they sometimes hate their mother and think she’s an evil witch. This is the role that imagination plays throughout our lives. It is one of the most essential tools for growing into liberal religions of any era.

I read a book a few years ago that made this point about magic in a wonderful way. It was the 2001 book Life of Pi, by Canadian author Yann Martel. It is the story of a 16-year-old Indian boy adrift for 227 days in a large lifeboat, accompanied – according to the story – by a 450-lb. Bengal tiger.

Now that’s unbelievable, and turns out to be untrue. But it’s a better story than the truth, which was naked and brutal. The truth was that the boy and his family were moving from India to Canada, when their ship sank. His father was drowned. He, his mother, a cook and a passenger with a broken leg wound up in a large lifeboat. As food ran out, the cook killed the wounded passenger to eat. Pi’s mother was appalled, and shouted at the cook about his barbarism, so he murdered her too, even cut off her head and threw it overboard. Pi then murdered the cook with his own butcher knife, and after disposing of the bodies, including the headless body of his mother, he was alone in the lifeboat for nearly eight months.

Here is a boy who has lost both parents, watched his mother being murdered, then in turn kills her killer, and is left alone – to face losing his family, the brutal murder, and his own capacity to kill. You could say that something deep within him was awakened. Something ancient, powerful and wild, a dark side that he had to learn to master or it could destroy him. Speaking in merely factual or psychological terms doesn’t do justice to the power or the terror of this thing that has awakened within him, and that saved his life. And so instead, this naked story of brutality, murder, more murder and survival became the story of a boy alone in a lifeboat with a 450-lb. Bengal Tiger that he must learn to master, lest it destroy him.

The truth, you could say, is that he had everything in him needed to survive, including the capacity, when necessary, to kill. The truth was that he was now alone in the world, with bloody memories almost impossible to incorporate without nightmares. But the truth made an awful story, and not one with much room to live in.

When he finally made it to the shores of South America, the tiger disappeared, and he was met by two men from the company that owned the ship that had sunk. They wanted to know what happened, and how he survived. He told them the story with the tiger, and they didn’t believe him. So he told them the brutal story, and they realized the awful truth. Then he said Look, I have told you two stories, one with a tiger and one without a tiger. Neither story explains why your ship went down. So now: which story do you want? The one with the tiger, or the one without the tiger? The men said they would write it up as a story about a boy and a tiger.

Yet you can’t accuse Pi of living in fantasy or illusion. He knew the truth. But he wanted a more imaginative story to carry it in, and a less naked and brutal one.

Do you want the truth? Here’s one way to tell it. The truth is that there is no consciousness after death. There is no mind and no Buddha, no heaven or hell. It’s here, or it’s nowhere. You’re fully awake only when you can give up even your comforting illusions, and the only magic is the magic we can create together. We also have everything we need. We are adequate to the tasks of life. That’s one way to say it. It’s pretty ho-hum.

Or you could say that we are all parts of God, parts of the infinite and eternal powers of the universe, created from joy, bathed in joy, and wrapped in joy until the very end of time. And all, all, is blessed. All is holy, and we are essential parts of all that is holy.

Both these stories carry the truths of that spirit of liberal religion that was first born in the human soul close to three thousand years ago.

That’s the good news. It’s the news of liberal religion in all ages. It can set you free. You don’t have to check your brain at the door. You don’t have to check your heart at the door. And, for the record, you don’t have to check your imagination at the door, either.

The liberal religious message will work told straight and naked for some few people. It will work just as well – and for more people – enshrined in a myth to live by, a story with a comforting and challenging role for us. As long as you remember that the story isn’t really about the tigers or the myths, you can choose. In liberal religion, you don’t have to check your brain at the door, or your heart. You don’t have to check your imagination at the door either, or your childlike ability to enter into useful fictions. And so think about it this week: do you want the truth that can set you free with or without tigers?