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READING:
from a letter by Thomas Jefferson
to a correspondent in Ohio (1822). Koch and Peden The Life and
Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, pp 703- 704, as quoted by
David B. Parke in The Epic of Unitarianism Unitarian Universalist
Association, Boston, 1957.
Sir, I have to
thank you for your pamphlets on the subject of Unitarianism, and to
express my gratification with your efforts for the revival of
primitive Christianity in your quarter. No historical fact is better
established, than that the doctrine of one God, pure and uncompounded,
was that of the early ages of Christianity; and was among the
efficacious doctrines which gave it triumph over the polytheism of the
ancients, sickened with the absurdities of their own theology. Nor was
the unity of the Supreme Being ousted from the Christian creed by
force of reason, but by the sword of civil government, wielded at the
will of the fanatic Athanasius. The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like
another Cerebus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and
growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs. And a
strong proof of the solidity of the primitive faith, is its
restoration, as soon as a nation arises which vindicates of itself the
freedom of religious opinion, and its external divorce from the civil
authority. The pure and simple unity of the Creator of the universe is
now all but ascendant in the Eastern States; it is dawning in the
West, and advancing towards the South; and I confidently expect that
the present generation will see Unitarianism become the general
religion of the United States.
have wondered for a long time why so many people believe things that I
don't. I know that at least many of these things they believe must be
untrue, not just because I don't believe them, but because they
contradict each other so obviously. There is, for example, the single
god of the Jews or Moslems which may be contrasted with a Christian
Trinity or a Hindu pantheon; a god of wrath who conspires with the devil
to condemn sinners to an eternity of fire, versus a god of love who has
created the best of all possible worlds; Jesus the Messiah, or the
Messiah of the Jews who is yet to come; the Infallibility of the Bible,
the infallibility of the Pope; alcohol forbidden, alcohol as part of a
sacrament. These things can not all be true and yet people believe them
and are willing to die for them -- and to kill for them.
The killing --
every day the newspapers tell us about strife and killing that seems to
be caused by these religious differences -- Catholics and protestants in
Ireland, Buddhists and Hindus in Sri Lanka; Sikhs and Hindus in India;
Jews, Christians, and Moslems of various sects in the incomprehensible
Middle East; Communist atheists and Moslems in Afghanistan -- Christian
Nazis and Jewish talk show host in Denver.
My father was
born in 1882, not long after Darwin finally published his Origin of The
Species, In a time when the geologists were making realistic estimates
of the age of the Earth, and astronomers were beginning to comprehend
the magnitude of the cosmos. When he was about one hundred years old,
and was living in a care center, he said to me: “Bob, we were modern. I
never thought the old beliefs would survive. And here I am at the end of
my life surrounded by very religious old women.”
The age of
science which my father had hoped would bring understanding, has not
done much to change our fundamental beliefs any more than Unitarianism
has fulfilled Thomas Jefferson's prophesy by becoming the predominant
American religion. There are still many people who believe in the
literal and absolute truth of every word of the Bible, including the two
different accounts of the creation in Genesis, the one in which God made
the world In four days and the other in which it took six.
And the age of
communication, that lets us watch sports events happening in Moscow and
brings us intimate views of the family life of the hump-backed whales,
should certainly have opened people's eyes to the variety of religious
beliefs, but has not done much to change those beliefs. You would think
that the very widespread knowledge that we have today would lead us
toward some sort of middle ground, some synthesis of the teachings of
the world's prophets, but I don't see much progress in that direction.
The ecumenical movement of the Roman Catholic Church, for instance, has
so far been unsuccessful in inducing even a single protestant group to
leap across the tiny theological gap and return to the fold.
We do see
increased tolerance among most of the clergy of the major Christian and
Jewish sects, but It Is of a peculiar sort. They tend to say '1 respect
your right to believe as you do, and I know that you are a pious and
benevolent person. However, I can not concede that the truth may be
somewhere between your creed and mine. A person needs a definite and
single faith, a single rock on which to stand.' There is little attempt
to amalgamate the sects, but rather a determination to keep them
separate with, at best, mutual respect. This sentiment is heard in
Unitarian Universalist circles when we discuss what can be done to keep
our youth from drifting away from our church. It 1s said that children
need something definite to believe, but no one knows what that definite
something could be that would not violate either our principle of
open-mindedness or our obligation to be honest with our children.
Not only is
there little or no movement toward mergers, but there is a definite
tendency to divide, which has always been a conspicuous feature of
religious history and Is still active. Soon after it was formed, the
Christian Church split into Eastern and Western orthodoxies with a few
splinter groups left over. Protestantism then broke away from Rome and
has itself been splitting ever since. Within recent history Mormonism, a
significant departure from main-line Christianity, has been created and
has taken its place as one of the major religions with tremendous wealth
and a growth rate that is unrivaled in the world today. Within the
Baptist movement, there is a chronic power struggle between the
conservative faction and the ~ conservative faction. One of the
Episcopal churches in Denver has broken away from its parent
organization because of a new version of the Book of Common Prayer.
Everywhere, there are unaffiliated churches that, with sufficiently
charismatic and talented leadership, could develop into important new
denominations.
And so I wonder
why people have such firm faith in so many mutually contradictory
teachings. I wonder why the contradictory dogmas have not faded away or
at least blended into something that most people can believe, and why
sects split off from the main lines. And I wonder why the differences
are so important that we will kill for them and whether religion is
really the villain of the modem world, the fundamental evil force that
divides and will ultimately destroy civilization.
Heavy stuff!
Let's change the subject for a minute and talk about ants. Ants live in
colonies of a million or so Individuals. They are apparently the most
social animals after humans. If an out-of-town ant enters the territory
of a colony that is not her own, she is immediately attacked and killed
by the locals. How do the defenders recognize the intruder? They do it
by sniffing her body odor, which is determined by complex chemicals,
called pheromones. Pheromones are widely used by insects and other
animals as sexual attractants, and they are highly specific in their
action. The perfume of a female gypsy moth will attract male gypsy moths
from incredible distances, but w1l1 have no effect on moths of closely
related but different species. In the case of the ants, the pheromones
can be used to differentiate between colonies of the same species. Going
into the wrong ant colony is someth1ng like wearing Bronco orange in the
Raiders' section of the stadium.
People are social animals too, but the society of people is much, much
more complex than ant society. People live in families, clans, villages,
tribes, and nations. They belong to clubs, societies, churches, teams,
political parties, and companies. Groups are essential to human life.
Unless you belong to groups, you simply can not survive in this world.
Human society is a complex structure of groups that not only compete
with each other but also cooperate with other groups to form larger
groups so that they can compete effectively with other groups of groups.
Survival of the individual requires not only a drive to compete as an
individual but also a strong team spirit that will direct energy toward
achieving the group's goals. Evolution has selected our ancestors from
among those who were able to get along. The ones who weren't team
players didn't make the cut. This inborn emotional need to belong makes
loneliness one of our greatest tragedies and solitary confinement one of
the cruelest punishments.
Organizations,
like organisms, undergo a process of natural selection. Organizations
that don't enforce group loyalty don't survive. You don't snitch on your
family or friends. There is honor among thieves. Treason and heresy are
punished by death.
In order to
survive, a group of people, like a colony of ants, must have something
to distinguish it from other groups. The members must be able to
recognize each other and to detect an Intruder from outside the group.
People are not
as smart as ants when it comes to pheromones, but they use many other
cues to tell who is OK and who is not. Physical characteristics
differentiate races -- color, hair texture, the shape of eyes and noses.
But race is not nearly a fine enough distinction to support the many
ways we divide ourselves. Speech is another way to tell who's who.
Languages separate nations, dialects show geographic origin, and accents
control admission to social classes. Dress is also important. Armies
have uniforms, and executives wear suits and ties. We wear badges at our
places of employment to show that we belong.
And religion --
religion is one of the most important of the pheromones that distinguish
groups.
Before going
further, let me tell you very briefly where I am trying to lead you this
morning.
I think you will
agree with me that groups are essential to human society and to human
life itself. You may also agree that groups need the equivalent of
pheromones to delineate their boundaries, to prevent infiltration by
outsiders, to hold them together, and to provide the loyalty that is
required to induce individuals to sacrifice their welfare and even their
Jives for the good of their groups.
I propose for
your consideration the idea that a major function of religions is to
support groups by acting as pheromones. For religions to be effective as
pheromones, they must differ from each other, and the differences must
be taken seriously. I do not want to suggest that the reason for the
existence of religion is to support groups} but only that this function
of religion may explain why there are so many conflicting dogmas and why
these dogmas are supported so fiercely.
I believe that
religions are not the primary causes of war, but are Instead tools of
war like propaganda, uniforms, and flags.
I suggest that
the same evolutionary forces that gave us the need to belong and the
drive toward cooperation and team play also gave most of us the
willingness to believe whatever religious dogma is taught and to attach
great importance to the difference between our own dogma and that of
other people. Some people didn't inherit this trait, this tendency to
accept indoctrination, and it is from this group that Unitarian
Universalists are recruited.
I am going to
talk about the role of religions in supporting our system of groups and
how in holding groups together they also separate the groups from each
other. I am also going to have something to say about how Unitarian
Universalism fits into the picture, and I hope that you will have some
good ideas about what we can do as individuals and as a religious body
to help develop some sort of working relationship among the many groups
of mankind.
And how do
religions operate to support their groups? They do it by making us feel
that our own group is holy and other groups are at least misguided and
probably headed for hell. They do it by cutting down on communication
between groups. They do it by making it very hard for people to stray
into other groups.
God told the
ancient Jews that they were his own chosen people. He told them that if
they had him as their only god he would give to them the land of Canaan,
and he commanded them to take the city of Jericho by siege and to kill
all the inhabitants. The Canaanites were not God's own, and therefore it
did not matter much what happened to them. Now this sort of
thing, the taking of land by conquest, was not unusual in those days any
more than it is now, and it could certainly have been done without
direct orders from God, but the religion of the Jews was a powerful
force binding together the tribes of Israel and setting them apart from
the surrounding peoples. It must have been a signif1cant mi11tary asset
in Old Testament times, and it still holds together a worldwide Jewish
community and makes it possible for the modem state of Israel to survive
among hostile neighbors in the same land that Joshua took by force so
long ago.
Of course the
Jews have had no monopoly on the use of religion to support national
aims. The global expansions of the Moslems and the Christians were given
moral support by the knowledge that the conquered people were not of the
true faith and would be greatly benefited by being converted, even
against their will.
Religion, if it
is to be an effective pheromone, must make defection difficult. It
should be like a uniform, a distinguishing mark that makes sure that you
can't just walk into the enemy camp and be one of them. But religion is
much better than a uniform because it is so hard to change. The habits
built up in a lifetime of indoctrination are not easily cast off. Guilt
and fear are powerful forces in keeping a religious person on the
straight and narrow. The inquisition in Spain and Portugal was directed
mainly against Jews who had ostensibly converted to Christianity but
were still loyal to their old faith. They gave themselves away by such
simple things as changing their underwear on Friday In preparation for
the Sabbath.
Religions are
designed to make fraternization difficult. Take sharing a meal, one of
the oldest and most powerful ways of bonding with a prospective friend.
But how could you invite an orthodox Jew to your table if you could not
guarantee a Kosher meal perfect in all details? And what about leisure
time activities, sharing some recreation on the Sabbath? That won't work
either, because the Christians changed the Sabbath to Sunday, and the
Moslems decided to take Friday off. Of course if your religion is one of
the stricter varieties, you aren't allowed to have any fun on the
Sabbath anyway.
One of the troubles that religious organizations run into as they become
larger and more successful is the tendency to split up into smaller
units. The problem is that the big group, which uses religious
differences to protect itself from absorption by other groups, is itseJf
vulnerable to the same forces, the same kind of differences, which can
divide its own membership into factions. It simply won't do to have
people think for themselves, to make their own interpretations of the
holy scriptures, to conceive that the official beliefs could possibly be
wrong in even the tiniest detail. And so the religious leadership sets
up tests of faith, creeds, which are vigorously enforced, sometimes
successfully and sometimes not.
In the fourth
century, Arius, a Greek priest in Egypt, decided that Christ was not on
the same level as God, but was actually only highest among created
beings. This was heresy, but heresy is not taken seriously by the
authorities as long as you keep it to yourself. The real crime, the
crime of Socrates and Jesus and John Huss and Galileo and Servetus was
that they would not keep quiet. Arius was a charismatic preacher who
attracted a following not only among the lay people, but even within the
clergy. This was a serious threat to the unity of the Church. The Bishop
of Alexandria was worried, and did what any Unitarian Universalist would
do today -- he called a meeting and obtained the support of the other
Egyptian bishops. They told Arius to cool it, but Arius, convinced that
he was right and the bishops were wrong, persisted in his preaching. The
problem was then referred to the top, to the emperor Constantine
himself, who called a much larger meeting in a place called Nicea in the
year 325. Three hundred and eighteen bishops, together with their
helpers, attended this general assembly, and they invented the Trinity
and wrote it up as the Nicene Creed, which still survives as a basic
statement of faith for most Christians. For the bishops the purpose of
the Creed was quite clearly to hold the Church together, and for the
Emperor holding the Church together meant holding the empire together.
It was important not only that Christians should believe things that
were different from what their Pagan and Jewish neighbors believed, but
all Christians had to believe the same things so that they would not
split up into warring factions. Arius's books were burned, but he
himself was only exiled.
The importance
of theological differences is really secondary to the political and
sociological differences that they serve. The ancient Jews needed land
of their own. The Holy Roman Empire needed a single faith to keep it
together. The driving force behind the Reformation was not theology but
politics and economics -- the northern Europeans were simply tired of
sending money to an Italian Vatican. The war between Catholics and
Protestants in Ireland really has nothing to do with doctrine -- it is
simply a continuation of the ancient struggle between the Irish people
and the invaders from Scotland and England.
Since religion
holds groups together and preserves their identities, if you want to
integrate conquered people into the dominant culture, you must convert
them. In Spanish and Portuguese America the conquistadors converted the
Indians to Christianity and put them to work. In modem times, the Soviet
Union is having trouble in at least two places, Catholic Poland and
Moslem Afghanistan, because they have not destroyed the native
religions.
In the United
States too, the religious differences have roots in ethnic, social, and
economic factors that are deeper than the differences in their creeds.
In simplistic
terms) we may say that the Episcopalians are traditionally associated
with the establishment those who came to the new world from
England in the early days and established themselves in business and the
professions. The Roman Catholics came later and got blue collar jobs in
the cities.
The
fundamentalists are largely from farming backgrounds, and many of them
trace their ancestry back to settlers who migrated from Scotland to
Ireland and then to the Appalachian Mountains. They are alarmed and
threatened by the breakdown in traditional morality. They find sexual
promiscuity flaunted on television, in print, and in the movies, and it
even seems to be condoned in the schools where children are given
information
on contraception. Patriotism is undermined by intellectuals who advocate
world government. Alcohol and other drugs are available everywhere and
are a real threat to their children. So they are fighting back, and what
holds them together and motivates them in their fight? Religion.
And what about us? Unitarian Universalists are mostly white collar,
suburban, politically liberal, and non smokers. And I think it would be
fair to say that most of us are here not because of our interest in
religion per se, but because we want to associate with people who think
the way we do. Our religion too serves as a pheromone, as a way for us
to recognize our own kind.
We have a dogma, by consensus, not decree, a main-line body of beliefs
that most of us agree on in general terms if not in detail. We believe
that what we do in this life is important, that is, we believe that
ethical behavior is intrinsically important, but we don't expect to be
rewarded or punished in the here-after for what we do here. We believe
that however the universe started, it is progressing according to its
own rules which, through science, we understand fairly well. Our
spiritual beliefs are varied -- some of us believe in God, and some are
hard core atheists, while many take a middle path believing that there
is something more to the universe than the material world, but not
necessarily anything as specific as a God. Certainly few of us expect
divine intervention to help us in our lives -- inspiration, perhaps, but
not direct intervention. It is up to us to make good things happen here
on earth. The centerpiece of Unitarian Universalism, the thing that is
really special for us, is that we tolerate openly expressed
heresy. Most other sects require at least token agreement with doctrine.
But there is something else that holds us together besides our religious
and philosophical beliefs. It is hard to define) but we all feel it –-
an ethic, an attitude that makes us comfortable here. Racial and ethnic
Jokes have no place in this church. We are concerned more with people
than with things, and are as interested in national and world affairs as
we are in the local scene.
We have a healthy religious climate in this country, not perfect, but
really pretty dam good, and what makes it so good is not just a
constitution that decrees separation of church and state, but the great
diversity of religion that we enjoy. No one group is powerful enough to
push the others around.
There have been some power plays and some local successes, but generally
there has been a balance that has given a degree of religious freedom
that no law could provide. If a single sect had a clear majority, it
would pack the Supreme Court and we would have prayer in the public
schools. And remember that it would only take a constitutional amendment
to establish a state religion. The fight for religious freedom will
never be won.
What can we do as Unitarian Universalists? We can't change human nature.
We can't stop people from believing in all sorts of different things,
and we can't stop people from bel1eving that anyone who disagrees with
them is an enemy. But we can help to maintain the balance and diversity
that keep the situation tolerable. We can do this by growing. We can
expand the membership of existing churches and fellowships and encourage
the formation of new Unitarian Universalist societies. I believe
we will always be a minority, but by being a larger, stronger minority
we will be more effective in disarming religious strife.
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