Good Theology / Bad Theology
A Sermon By The Rev. Susan Manker-Seale
September 19, 2004
The Holocaust Memorial in Boston stretches along a grassy median near Fannuil Hall. It consists of a series of glass structures, each made from four tall glass panels forming a sort of hollow tower through which you can walk. On each panel, reaching high above you as you stand in the middle, are tiny engravings which, as you look closer, turn out to be thousands of tiny number sequences. Each is the number identity of someone who died in the concentration camps. As you stand in the middle, staring up at the numbers covering every space of the glass, steam rises about you from the grate below your feet, reminding you of the gas of the chambers which killed so many. When you look down, tiny stars wink in and out through the grate.
It was just a coincidence that a group of us ministers walked past that memorial on Thursday night. While a few cars went by on either side of us, we moved silently as if in a museum, murmuring as we read the quotes of survivors in each of the towers. It was just a coincidence that we should experience this memorial on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. We didn’t even think of it, then. I think of it now, though, and remember the tremendous horrors that fanatical religious beliefs can lead us to bring into the world. And they probably always have.
Rosh Hashanah. A time for looking within and admitting one’s sins. A time of asking for and receiving forgiveness. A time of cleansing before facing one’s God with the truth of one’s life. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Religious practices that guide one toward right action and reconciliation.
The teachings of Judaism can be described as either good or bad, and Christianity the same, and Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism. Religions aren’t inherently bad (although there are those who would say they are) or good. Each religion has those who twist the teachings toward their own ends, or who cling to ancient teachings no longer relevant to justify their actions. Religions are also full of the wisdom of the ages, guiding us through our lives as they have guided countless lives for millennia.
Many religions are based on a common teaching, a common human value of right relationship. Here are just six renditions of the Golden Rule, as found in the major religions of the world:
Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not do to others. That is the entire Law: all the rest is commentary. --Talmud Shabbat
Buddhism: Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. --Udanavarga
Islam: No one of you is a believer until you desire for others that which you desire for yourself. --Sunan
Hinduism: This is the sum of duty: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you. --Mahbharata
Christianity: All things whatsoever ye would that people should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the word of The Law and the Prophets. --Matthew
Confucianism: Is there one maxim which ought to be acted upon throughout one’s life? Surely it is the maxim of loving-kindness: do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you. --Analects
Even Chief Noah Sealth, or better known as Chief Seattle, expressed this Golden Rule in the teachings of his people: “This we know. The earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth….Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.” (Singing The Living Tradition, 550) Here “Do unto others” is carried into a broader, more mature realm which extends beyond the relationship between one person and another.
When I was preparing for this sermon, I wrote a long list of the things religions teach us to do that are good, and one list, longer too, of the things they teach us that are bad. I’m not going to read mine because I’m sure you can come up with lists at least as long as mine are. Good and bad are subjective concepts, of course. Those people who have committed atrocities in the name of their faith believe they are doing good in the name of their god. They believe god is on their side in their fight to create a better world, at least, as they envision it.
The word religion comes from the latin religio meaning re-linking or reunion, binding. Religions bind us together and to god or goddess or nature. They are a set of precepts, a set of beliefs, values and practices. A belief in god is optional, although I expect many religious believe otherwise.
The words religion and theology are actually not interchangeable, but theology does inform religion, or maybe it is the other way around. In the Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Barbara Walker defines theology as meaning “literally, ‘God-knowledge.’” She goes on to say it is “the paradoxical pretense of knowing what theologians themselves call unknowable.” (p. 991) That statement bears repeating, if only because it is so delightful: “the paradoxical pretense of knowing what theologians themselves call unknowable.” No wonder I had so much trouble understanding historical theology in seminary, especially Christian theology! I’m too logical. That’s not to say theology wasn’t interesting, though. But just so strange, and so often absurd!
For me, basic Christianity boils down to Jesus’ response to the question about what is the most important teaching, and Jesus says to love one another as yourself, etc, etc. Unfortunately, Christianity got hung up in later years on little disagreements about trinities and transubstantiations, which was the argument about whether the communion wafer and wine actually transformed into Jesus’s body and blood …lots of little details having little to do with loving and doing unto others. The “doing unto others” morphed into “doing to others,” as in throwings to the lions and burnings at the stakes. Our favorite old Unitarian martyr story tells of the radical theologian Michael Servetus, who, during the early years of the Reformation, fervently argued that the trinity was nowhere in the Bible. He irked Calvin so much that Calvin burned him at the stake.
Now-a-days, I say, who cares about trinity or unity? What is more important: the form of divinity or the values of a faith? I still agree with Jesus that love is the most important thing, and with the myriad religions who taught the Golden Rule. What we do with our faith is what is important; how we treat each other and the world.
We have a legacy, though, that trips us up. Although Christianity has evolved into many forms, from the very liberal (that’s us) to the extremely conservative (that’s the fundamentalists), we have inherited a basic religious story and teachings that have not changed, even as their interpretations have changed. Anyone can go back to the old teachings in the Bible and justify just about anything. Today, in this country, that’s what some people are trying to do, some very powerful people.
Walker, from the Women’s Encyclopedia, reminds us of the Judeo-Christian image of a vengeful god, a god who needed to be feared, a god who, “punished the whole human race for one sin of its remote ancestor, with a punishment so terrible that it would last forever in merciless agony.” As to the effect a belief in such a god had on society, Walker writes,
Social evils that might have been remedied were left unchecked, on the theory that all human beings were sinful wretches who deserved to suffer--especially women, the primary sinners. Serfdom, slavery, legalized brutality, economic oppression--all were excused in the name of a vengeful God, whose priesthood insisted on his hostility toward humanity, to the point where unspeakable atrocities were committed to the greater glory of religion. Christian history shows that religion may follow a humane course in response to social trends; but it does not lead the way. (p. 851)
Let’s see: women, serfdom, slavery, legalized brutality, economic oppression…doesn’t that sound familiar today? Is the vengeful god still around in whose name we justify oppression? Which of these oppressions is being perpetuated by the radical religious right? Which ones are being promoted by our very own government? Which ones do we turn a blind eye to because they’re so complicated and painful and too far away to do anything about?
Bill Moyers wrote an article which was forwarded to me on the internet. He responds to two questions: “How do we nurture the healing side of religion over the killing side?” and “How do we protect the soul of democracy against bad theology in the service of an imperial state?” It’s a scathing article attacking the policies of our government today and the social evils it is creating and perpetuating, and the ways our Judeo-Christian story influences such socially damaging actions. He argues that what is changing our society today is not the old “democratic debate,” but rather money, big money, big, big money, paired with the influence of the Radical Religious Right. He writes that “what has been happening to the middle and working classes is…the direct consequence of corporate activism, intellectual collusion, and the rise of a religious orthodoxy that has made an idol of wealth and power…”
So, what can we do? Certainly we can keep speaking out against religious orthodoxy and oppression. We can vote. We can help patch up the social ills or work to change the policies that create those ills. We can follow in the footsteps of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gandhi, and Susan B. Anthony, and many, many others. We can uphold the greatest teachings of the religions we know: to love one another and to do unto others in kindness and compassion. We can recognize that we are the ones who interpret religion, who interpret theology, for ourselves and in community. We can spend this 40th anniversary year of the Civil Rights Act by contemplating what civil rights mean and who is being left out, ostracized, oppressed today, not just in our own town, our own country, but in the world of humanity. If we are unable to do so ourselves, we can support those who go out to change the world. We can hold onto the good in theology, in religion, so that the bad has nothing to cling to.
Phillip Hewett wrote the most beautiful words we recited in the responsive reading:
We would hold fast to all of good we inherit even as we would leave behind us the outworn and the false.
We would escape from bondage to the ideas of our own day and from the delusions of our own fancy.
Let us labor in hope for the dawning of a new day without hatred, violence, and injustice.
Let us nurture the growth in our own lives of the love that has shone in the lives of the greatest of men and women, the rays of whose lamps still illumine our way.
In this spirit we gather.
In this spirit we pray. (440)
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Northwest Tucson