Whisper Across The Divide

Whisper Across the Divide January 9, 2005

What I’m going to do this morning is not of my own choosing — not exactly. For the last two years at Winterfest I have offered a sermon for auction on the topic of the winner’s choice. This past year, Mike Steiner, a long-time member and supporter of First Unitarian, made the winning bid, and we met a few months ago when he had figured out what he wanted me to speak about.

Mike is a nice guy, who could not be here this morning—a thoughtful, good, and deliberate man. And, like a lot of nice people these days, he finds himself profoundly troubled when he looks at the world and considers the direction in which it appears to be headed. He asked me to do a sermon on moral disagreement. How do we handle, live with, respond to, or work with genuine moral disagreements when they occur within our families, our neighborhoods, our cities, or our nation? How are people of faith like ourselves, people who value peace and justice, how are we supposed to live in this world where it appears that moral conflict has come to be the defining characteristic of our culture, even more than the common ground and common values that we share?

I confess I roll my eyes and sigh every time I see a bumper sticker that shows an American flag and says “United We Stand.” Nonsense! There was a horribly tragic opportunity for the country and even the world to be brought together after 9/11, but that opportunity is now irredeemably squandered. There is a great divide in our nation, and all of us have a role in it for better or for worse. There is a billboard sign somewhere on the East side of town I saw the other day, displaying that all-too-familiar map of America divided into red and blue states, and this one showed the map with large, clumsy stiches and Band-aids pasted across the red and blue boundaries.

But if persuasion doesn’t work, and it doesn’t (at least not always); if reason doesn’t work, and it doesn’t; if shouting across the moral and cultural divide doesn’t work, and it doesn’t, then just what are we supposed to do? Acquiescence on either side is not an option. And, let’s be honest, brotherly love is in pretty short supply.

Now Mike left the method and content for dealing with this gnarly topic up to me, but his suggestion was that I take some ~~cur~~rent hot topic like gay marriage, abortion rights, the war in Iraq, or some other deeply emotional issue and explore… well, I think he wanted me to just tell us all how to do this. Underneath our discussion, I believe I sensed in Mike what I have sensed in many people over the last couple of years and have often felt deeply in my own soul. What can I do with moral differences that appear so intractable and feel so hopeless? How do I find some common ground with those on the other side of moral issues, who appear to have absolutely no desire to find common ground? And, is it even worth the effort? I had a conversation with someone recently where they shared that ever since the election, they had been struggling with whether they still believed that people are basically good! These are serious matters.

The reality is that this is a profoundly complex issue that is impossible to separate from fundamental questions of human nature, basic systems of religion and ethics, and the vast diversity of cultural norms.

I also have to tell you that I had two main struggles in grappling with this. The first was how I could get the issue focused enough to actually say something and still have you home in time for dinner. The second struggle centered on the fact that I’m not even remotely neutral on most moral issues, and to pretend otherwise would be a sham.

Given all that, what I am going to try to do is highlight some of the essential issues and difficulties, and in the context of our religious tradition, suggest an approach to which we might try to be faithful.

We begin with the observation that moral issues are not things that people tend to change their minds about. The way an individual or group interprets moral value is deeply rooted in how they understand the world, and so fundamental that these become matters not just of belief, but of identity. As just one example, consider the almost unbelievably dysfunctional national dialogue over whether gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to marry. We can’t even agree on what the issue is! Religious conservatives claim the issue is about sexual morality and base this upon their so-called traditional religious views. I say “so-called” traditional religious views because their statements about this are simply historically inaccurate. Slavery and polygamy are far more traditional and far more biblically justified than is marriage as currently practiced.

But for the rest of us, gay marriage is an issue of fairness and equality. And, because it’s about fairness, it’s really about authority. Who are these people to decide that one standard should apply to one group of people and another standard to others? Why should their interpretation of their bible triumph over our interpretation of the constitution when it comes to public policy? They keep talking about their religious views of marriage, and we keep talking about justice and equal rights in a society that is theoretically egalitarian and free. The whole conversation is rife with misunderstandings, misinformation, and an absolutely heartfelt mistrust of each side by the other. We are never going to change their minds about this, and they are never going to change ours. Again, we don’t even agree on what the issue is.

Second, but related to this, we have great difficulty with language. And even though both sides use many of the same terms to defend our respective positions, we mean very different things by some of these words. I’m generalizing here, but consider that when Donald Rumsfeld or George Bush uses a word like justice, they are generally talking about meting out punishment for wrongdoers or death for people they decide are terrorists. But when Martin Luther King, or Gandhi, or Fannie Lou Hamer, or most of us over on the liberal side use the word justice, we are generally referring to things like equality and taking down the structures of oppression.

The same is true for a word like freedom. Conservatives tend to think of freedom in economic terms: free enterprise, free markets, freedom from interference or political constraint in the marketplace. They see government as something that impedes freedom.

Liberals tend to think of freedom primarily in terms of protecting the social and political rights of individuals. Freedom for liberals means the guarantee that private and personal lives won’t be interfered with. They look to the government to provide freedom.

Differences over such core concepts like justice and freedom makes it almost impossible to have a meaningful conversation because we are literally, not figuratively but literally, speaking different languages.

Third, and I really hate to say this in a Unitarian Universalist context, but we need to almost, if not entirely, dispense with any expectations of rationality on either side of any deeply moral issue, including our own moral positions. Moral positions and disagreements, by their very nature, do not lend themselves to rational argument, and reason never convinced anyone of anything when it comes to moral issues.

Part of what I’m getting at with this is that far underneath almost every specific issue there are essentially two poles on the continuum of moral argument. Imagine a line with moral relativism at one end and moral absolutism at the other. Moral relativists tend to believe that all moral values are products of specific cultures in specific times and are therefore inherently transitory, inherently fallible, and therefore need to be carefully balanced and weighed against each other when they conflict. It’s not that there are no absolutes, we would all agree that the unnecessary killing of innocents is wrong, but some moral values can conflict with each other and discernments need to be made with an eye toward the greatest good. Moral relativists tend to locate moral authority and moral autonomy within each individual and the groups to which they belong.

Those who see morality in absolute terms suffer no such ambiguity. They see moral values as unchanging, unchangeable, and non-negotiable. They tend to believe that if we have erred in the past, it’s because of our own moral failings or lack of understanding, not because of any flaw in the system of morality itself. And moral absolutism tends to locate moral authority in external sources like tradition or the bible.

The controversy over a woman’s right to choose an abortion is an excellent example of how this works. I have personally never met a Pro-choice advocate who liked or approved of abortion. But pro-choice advocates tend to be moral relativists, and they argue that within certain limits, the negative of abortion has to be weighed against the negative of removing a woman’s right to autonomy and self-determination.

Pro-life advocates who would ban all abortions for all people all the time tend to see morality in absolute terms. They say abortion is simply wrong. It’s always wrong, always has been, always will be, and this fact simply trumps any and all other values that might potentially conflict. Typically, they take the position, based on their moral values, that any compromise, any at all, can only be a moral compromise, and all moral compromise is unacceptable.

We are not going to agree on this issue.

To take this a little deeper, to show how truly subjective and transitory moral values can in reality be, consider slavery, one of the hot moral issues of just a few centuries ago. In the modern world, we all basically agree that human slavery is bad, and we tend to look back on the many cultures where slavery has been practiced, including our own, as unenlightened or even cruel. The fact is that many of these cultures were perfectly willing to acknowledge that the life of a slave was unfortunate, but they made no meaningful efforts to end the practice because they saw it as fitting to the natural order of things and as necessary to the greater public good. As modern people, we tend to give ourselves a pat on the back that we’ve outgrown this view, but is it so difficult to imagine that a hundred years from now people will look back on us as horribly barbaric because we allowed unspeakable degrees of poverty to co-exist with the greatest wealth the world has ever known, and we took no meaningful steps to eradicate it?

This is just one example, and, yes, I am making a case for moral relativism over moral absolutism. But I’m also making a case for understanding that these issues are not necessarily clear to we who are in the middle of them and emotionally attached to their outcomes. I am also repeating—because this is important to understand—that these issues are not even rational, even for those of us who pride ourselves on being rational. This is because from a philosophical standpoint, both moral absolutism and moral relativism have gaping holes and inherent flaws. It is for all these reasons, as all of us have witnessed ad nauseam, that conversation between opposing sides of moral issues far too often becomes characterized by deficient communication, negative stereotyping, mistrust, and outright hostility. The sad truth is that human beings have yet to develop a coherent and uniform understanding or practice of morality, or a way for conflicting moral systems to peacefully co-exist in the same society, though it’s not for lack of trying.

I realize I have spent a great deal of our precious time on outlining some of the underlying difficulties in moral disagreements. It is my hope that what I’ve done so far has been informative and helpful rather than adding to your respective levels of despair. That is not my intention. But I hope, and I believe, that when we begin to seriously consider in what direction lies hope for a better way and a better world, we will need to do so in full realization of what we are up against.

The short answer to the question of where lies the hope is that approaches need to be found that allow a much more meaningful communication. We must find ways to be in dialogue with others, and in doing so, all of us need to understand that just because we are in dialogue with someone does not mean that they will ever come to accept our view, or that finding common ground is a mutual concern, or that any compromise is possible. There are simply times when differences will remain irreconcilable, but that doesn’t let us off the hook for sustaining those dialogues. And it doesn’t let us off the hook for taking part in those dialogues in the healthiest, clearest, most respectful, and most faithful way we are capable of.

Dialogue, by the way, is an interesting word. It comes from the Greek and has two parts: dia, meaning “through,” or “with each other,” and logue, which comes from the word logos, meaning “reason,” “word,” or “truth.” To dialogue, then, is to share reason or words with each other. It is the exact opposite of a debate—where the object is to win. The object of dialogue is to seek the truth with and through each other.

Socrates believed that a dialogue needs four mutual understandings to work: a focused question or subject, an agreement that truth is the purpose of discussion, good will among the speakers and listeners, and a commitment to follow the logos where it leads, even if it contradicts the preconceptions each participant brings.

That is simply not going to happen much in today’s climate, but it is a useful model nonetheless. There are many others; Ethical Pluralism, open dialogue, stories, principles of shared power, checks and balances, dialectics, etc. We could spend hours on any one of them, but here are some guidelines that I believe will be helpful.

First, know that language is powerful. Use it accurately. You will never hear me refer to the so-called Marriage Protection Act by that name in public. Its very name is a lie. It offers protection for nothing and nobody, so I urge you to call it what it really is. The Marriage Discrimination Act has no business in a democratic free society. That is just one example.

Second, don’t set yourself up for failure and disappointment by expecting harmony. It doesn’t work that way. It never has, and it never will. I once heard Father Daniel Berrigan tell of his efforts in the late 1980s to set up a free press in Moscow after the fall of the Soviet Union. Every Friday they would gather around some cheap vodka in the makeshift apartment they used for an office and say, “Let us toast to the success of our impossible task!”

Third, read. Read the alternative press, and not just the side you happen to agree with. Learn more, not just about what the other side thinks and wants but why they think that way. Engage in the discipline of expanding your own understanding by trying to understand and argue the side you don’t agree with. Examine more closely the beliefs that inform your own moral and political opinions. I will share with you that over the last two years of reading and research for some of the sermons I’ve done right here, I’ve gone from a knee-jerk liberal to a thoughtful moderate. And that’s a good thing. I’ve found that there are people on the fundamentalist side that I can talk to now that I couldn’t before, and that’s also a good thing.

Fourth, discuss what you learn with people you know and trust. Don’t be afraid to get something wrong or to change your mind. That’s how we learn. When you have enough confidence, expand the circle of who you talk to. Take the advice of Rabbi Harold Kushner, who says he never witnesses his faith by saying, “I think you’re wrong, and let me tell you why.” Kushner begins with “This is where I’m coming from, and this where it leads me, and this why I find it satisfying.” It is a very different kind of conversation.

Fifth, stick to the basics. The whole world would be a vastly better place if all of us would practice the golden rule. Before you speak, consider how you would like to be spoken to. Before you lecture, consider what your listeners might be able to hear. Don’t be afraid to judge, or even to judge harshly when it’s deserved. But before you do, be sure to take a good long look in the mirror. There is not one of us, myself included, that couldn’t do a better job of that.

Sixth and last, support those organizations and candidates (though they be few) that are working to move beyond a grid-locked and increasingly irrelevant politics of winning and losing. The Citizens Project, The Interfaith Alliance, Project Vote Smart, and numerous others are far from perfect, but at least they’re active and articulate about these goals.

In short, the hope for our salvation, for human salvation, lies in finding and maintaining a balance—a balance between a commitment to civility and a commitment to speaking the truth, between fighting for what we believe in while making room for those who believe differently, between achieving what we deserve, and making an honest sacrifice for those who cannot achieve, between using the power that we have, and knowing that if we really believe in pluralism, our power must be shared.

In the words of that old union song by Pete Seeger, “Take it easy, but take it!”