“But the Children of Korah Did Not Die.”
What Do I Mean When I Say “Liberal”?

A sermon delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the New River Valley, Jamuary 12, 2003, by the Reverend Christine Brownlie.

Often, when I’m talking about our way of the spirit, I use the word “liberal” to describe our fundamental approach to questions of religious authority, creeds, church governance, and so on. I do this, knowing that “liberal” is a word that is loaded with connotations, history, and emotion. I know that it’s a highly politicized word and that many people understand the meaning of this word largely in the context of party politics. Even so, I go on using this word, knowing full well that this might get me into trouble.

I use the world “liberal” because it describes what I value about Unitarian Universalism quickly and elegantly. Like many descriptive words, “liberal” sets us apart from other religious groups who would describe themselves as “evangelicals” or “conservatives.” For some people these terms are uncomfortable because they seem to draw lines in the sand, separating people into rigid categories that emphasize differences rather than similarities. These words have the potential to create conflicts between people instead of nurturing harmonious relationships.

That doesn’t bother me. I believe that it’s important to know who you are, to value your roots and to consider seriously the values and virtues that call you to a particular worldview. There is power in knowing what your strengths and weaknesses are as well.

Of course, there are serious dangers that can accompany a strong sense of identity and history: self-righteousness, arrogance, and an inability to see any truth in other points of view are most obvious. But those dangers, as ugly as they may be, don’t negate the importance in knowing who you are and taking pride in your reality. I’m also in favor of listening deeply to those who have very different opinions from mine to understand who they are and how they see the world. Agreement or acceptance aren’t necessary or, in some cases, even possible. Civility and affirming the inherent worth and dignity of every person are important, at least in my humble opinion.

If you read Joshua Zeitz’s article in the January 5th editorial section of the Roanoke Times, you know that the words “liberal” and “conservative” came into the vocabulary of American politics during the years of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency. Roosevelt defined liberals as people who understood that

“as new conditions and problems arise beyond the power of men and women to meet as individuals, it becomes the duty of government to find new remedies with which to meet them.”

I would add that liberals tend to be optimistic about human nature, believing that people are inclined to be virtuous as they recognize the natural laws that govern human life and relationships. They uphold individual choice and, for the most part, abhor government interference in private matters, which they tend to see as an attack on individual civil rights. But when an issue moves from the private to the public arena — such as child abuse or the cost of health insurance — liberals will advocate for government actions.

Conservatives tend to hold that individuals are responsible for their own lives and problems. Government should have a minimal role in creating solutions for social ills. Business and private institutions are better equipped to deal with the needs of the people. The answer to a rising welfare roll or hungry children, is to get people to work, the solution to spousal abuse might be to get churches to offer better marriage preparation classes. Conservatives are more concerned with ensuring a certain level of morality in society, and it is in this arena where they are likely to see a role for government intervention. Conservatives are likely to approve of rating systems for movies and video games, laws that restrict the sale of sexually explicit materials, access to abortion. From a conservative point of view, such things are a destructive to public morality and the fabric of society.

Another way to understand the differences between liberals and conservatives is to ask where they locate power and authority. This test can be used in both politics and religion.

Issues of power and authority came to the forefront in the sphere of religion long before we saw them at work in the political sphere. We think of the hallmarks of liberalism: valuing of the individual and the demand for a voice in the halls of power, as something that began to blossom during the Renaissance or the Enlightenment, but within the history of the Jewish and Christian tradition there is a very early account in the Old Testament book of Numbers (Chapter 16 1–3):

Now Korah. … took two hundred fifty Israelite men, leaders of the congregation, chosen from the assemble, well known men, and they confronted Moses. The assembled against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, “You have gone too far! All of the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. So why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?

Moses is so upset when he hears this that he throws himself on the ground. These rebels are running the risk of angering Yahweh and destroying their chances of getting to the Promised Land. The following day, Korah and his closest followers gather together and God tells the rest of the people to move far away. The ground opens and these men and their families and all that they own fall straight into Sheol and the Earth closed up over them. Fire consumes the other 250 men.

It would appear that this is the end of Korah and his line. But ten chapters later (Numbers 26, vs 11), we are told that notwithstanding the violent act of God against this rebellious man,

“… the children of Koah did not die.”

Here we have an example of a group of people rising up and, in the terms of today, speaking truth to power: Listen up Moses, you’re not better than the rest of us, so why are you so high and mighty and making all the rules? And the children of Korah would arise again and again over the centuries, making the claim that they too were holy, that divine inspiration came to them as well as to the anointed church authorities. They declared that the Lord was with them as well as with the clergy — even though they may be uneducated common folk, or political outcasts, or purists who thought that infant baptism was a heresy, or non-believers who saw in the stories of Jesus a recasting of the old pagan gods and who claimed that reason and faith were partners, not enemies. Like Korah and those who stood with him, they suffered terribly for their claims, and their heirs persisted generation to generation unto the present day.

So what do religious liberals look like in the 21^st century? In some ways, we look very much like our ancestors, the Pilgrims, who arrived in America in the early 1600s. We reject the idea of a cosmic hierarchy that ought to be reflected in the organization of human society. We don’t like having politicians or priests control our lives or our religious practices. We believe that Church and State should be separate, and we are vigilant about maintaining clear boundaries. We’re talking about power here, and the relationship between the authority of the State and/or the Church to run our lives and shape our community according to a particular system of religious beliefs.

These issues of power and authority and the relationship between the state and religion can be contentious and tricky. How much influence should religious leaders have over legislation? I’ve certainly heard liberal complain about how the conservatives seem to have special access to our delegates and representatives. I’m glad to see that there is an initiative this year to get our own Unitarian Universalist viewpoint across to our state delegates during lobby days next week. We know that other religious groups have been lobbying their delegates for years. It’s about time we did too. And perhaps we ought to examine our own actions and assumptions more carefully. One of our board members has expressed concern that we are using a state-funded e-mail service to carry out church business. This may seem a small thing, but I believe we should consider the implications of her thoughts. Are we asking the State to support a religious activity in an inappropriate fashion?

Our reading this morning lifted up another benchmark of religious liberalism with the words

“ … the promptings of the spirit, which bloweth where it listeth and maketh all things new.”

Here we come to issues of authority and individuality within our congregations. In the free church or liberal tradition the minister can’t claim special knowledge or a greater level of inspiration than any other person within the congregation. In the most radical expression of the liberal church, the Society of Friends, every member is a minister. We reject creeds and doctrinal statements, as well as the rituals of the past as a limitation on the freedom of the spirit and the mind of the individual.

We claim that every person has access to truth or revelation, by that light we say that uniformity of belief isn’t necessary for us to gather in as a congregation of religious seekers. The purpose of gathering for services and fellowship is not to have beliefs imposed upon us by the minister, even if she might like to be able to do that, now and again. The value of gathering is to have a place where, in a place of respect and safety, we can exchange and test our thoughts and convictions, those promptings of the spirit that have come to us and which we believe to be true.

This telling and testing enriches our individual faith and deepens the spirit of community. The great Quaker theologian, Rufus Jones, said that through dialogue with others,

“There is something more in each individual than there would be if they were operating in isolation.”

Through this exchange, each person becomes an “over-individual” and transcends his or her own smaller self through the life of others. The freedom of the search, the test of reason, and the toleration of the minority position are important to this process of dialog.

Religious liberalism has a generally optimistic view of human nature and in human capabilities to do good. Within the Unitarian tradition, we find a great faith in human progress and a belief that “progress” would eventually lead to human perfection. “Onward and upward forever!” was the Unitarian motto of the late 1800s. Our forebears believed that if they could overcome the barriers of sectarianism, the emphasis on differences, and make a push for the universality of all people and religions, that most of humankind’s problems would be resolved.

Obviously that hasn’t happened, and over the past couple of decades, the optimistic view of liberalism has lost some of its appeal. Witness the rise of fundamentalism around the globe, the swing to a more conservative stance in both religion and politics in our own country. Our hope for the healing power of universality has also fallen flat as we’ve entered a postmodern, multi-cultural world in which the claims to rights based on particular ethnic, racial, and gender difference have become the battle cry for justice by many groups within society. I’m sensitive, I hope, to the validity of these claims, but there are times when I wish that the appeal for justice could be made based on the universality of our shared humanity, rather than on the history and context of a particular group. Gay rights are human rights and vice versa.

The most powerful criticism of liberal religion is that it lacks depth. I think of the claim that UUs believe anything we want to. While I know that this statement is false, I’ll have to say that I’ve certainly met UUs who make faith statements that would wither in the face of dialogue and reason. I remember questioning a woman who believed that human life began on Earth when a space ship landed on our planet and that the ship was still docked outside our solar system, controlling events here and waiting to take all the true believers back “home.” When I asked her how she knew this, through either reason or experience, she confessed that she didn’t, but she held to her faith because, “It makes me feel good.”

I suspect that there are many UUs who have private beliefs that they hold dear simply because they feel good. I expect that one reason we don’t talk about human problems like evil or sin is because these ideas seem judgmental, harsh, and we feel bad when we struggle with them. Many liberals construct a belief system the way some people make soup: they don’t follow a recipe, they just toss whatever they find appealing into the pot, a little bit of paganism, a few stalks of Jesus, a cup of Buddhism, four tablespoons of Humanism, two of Jungian psychology. And there you are: a faith for the our modern times. The trouble is that depth and strength of conviction comes not from the warm fuzzies, but from the struggles with the difficulties that are inherent in any worldview. Joseph Campbell said that the best way to have a religion that would serve you all your life was to pick a myth and live with it. Accept what you like and struggle with what you don’t like. To him, that was the path to the Truth.

James Luther Adams, our own liberal Christian theologian, warned that liberalism is not an invitation to trivial freedom. Even liberalism needs a center, a sense of roots to save us from the foolish claim that we live only in the present and the future. We can question tradition, we can hold history up to the light of modern thought and values, but to be rigidly anti-traditional and historically illiterate is to ignore the truth and beauty of our heritage. This impoverishes us as individuals, and makes our movement subject to the whim of fads. Again, to quote Adams,

“Nothing significant in human history is achieved expect through long standing-continuities.”

The words “liberal” and “conservative” are laden with values, and many of us make the mistake of assuming that religious liberals are automatically political liberals. This assumption is often true, but not always and I would encourage us to be more mindful of our political diversity both as a larger movement and within our own congregation. I can see a continuity between the religious stance that says every person contains the inherent potential for goodness and wisdom and the political claim that the government should not be providing solutions for the problems of individuals or communities, but that the most effective solutions will evolve as people share their ideas and dialog together. There are some assumptions about power and resources that I’d want to challenge in this view, but I do like the emphasis on the rights of individuals to make decisions about the things that affect them.

I am glad to be a liberal. I feel fortunate to carry a worldview that allows me to gather wisdom from many sources and to have the opportunity to create a faith that feeds me deeply, through the hard times as well as the sunny days. But I also know that if my religion is to have the power necessary for the work of transformation, then it has to be rooted deeply in a firm foundation. That depth will come only if I examine my faith with a clear eye of reason and the warm heart of experience. My faith isn’t like a warm sweater that I put on and take off as my level of comfort and security change. It’s more like a map that leads me into new territory, guiding me with directions and the knowledge that while there are many paths to explore, some are dead ends. Others lead to fertile plains and flowing rivers. Jesus said,

“By your fruits shall they know you.”

May it be so!

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