Violence and Religion

Liturgical Materials for Sunday the 6^th of October, 2002

Mark Belletini, Minister First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus, Ohio

Opening Words [Next] [back to top]

We are here
to give thanks together
that we can live out, in our own lives,
all that our living tradition gives to us:
freedom in form and imagery,
doubt as faith's weighty anchor
and a community of welcome and challenge.
Therefore, fire of Love, dream of Peace,
kindle in us now, and

(together) may our reason and passion keep us true to ourselves,
true to each other,
and true to those shared visions of what we can together become.

Sequence [Next] [back to top]

Rain, like tears, fall on my face.

There is much for me to grieve on this earth.

Sun, like the warm palm of a child
touching my head, ordain me to
tenderness in my living and love in my learning.

Stars of night, sliver of moon,
help me to feel my insignificance in the cosmos
not as a lack, but as a great treasure.

Friends and foes, strangers and family,
help me to feel my importance in the embrace
of hearts that reach out to me.

Fire of wisdom, burn away the chaff of my ego.

Water of wisdom, quench my deeper thirst.

Wind of wisdom, muss my clothes
and keep me loose.

Earth of wisdom, support my weight and weigh my support of you with your silent autumn questions
fluttering down the sidewalk, red and yellow.

Silence sustain me. Quiet receive me.
Love, hold me.

(silence)

Let the deep ligaments of love and yearning and
loss which bind us to the world take shape now
in the images or names of people whom we thank for their part in our lives, as supports, challenges, teachers or encouragers.

We name them privately as we wish, or aloud as we wish.

(naming)

Blest is the world where tears are a gift, and
laughter is a gift, and love is a gift, and music
is a gift.

First Reading [Next] [back to top] comes from the poignant reflections of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. She has recently been granted some limited freedom from the Military Government that has isolated her great nation from the rest of the world by violence and repression for several decades. Excerpted from Freedom from Fear, 1991.

Where there is no justice there can be no secure peace. That just laws which uphold human rights are the necessary foundation of peace and security would be denied only by closed minds. Closed minds are those which interpret peace as the silence of all opposition, and security as the assurance of their own power. The Burmese, however, associate peace and security with coolness and shade:

The shade of a tree is cool indeed
The shade of parents is cooler
The shade of teachers is cooler still
The shade of the ruler is yet more cool
But coolest of all is the shade of the
Buddha's teachings.

Thus to provide the people with the protective coolness of peace and security, rulers must observe the teachings of the Buddha. Central to these teachings are the concepts of truth, righteousness and loving-kindness. It is government based on these very qualities that the people of Burma are seeing in their struggle for democracy.

Second Reading [Next] [back to top] is from our own particular religious heritage, namely, the powerful words of Theodore Parker, a nineteenth century Unitarian minister famed and often vilified for his social oratory. This is excerpted from a speech given on February 4th, 1847 at Fanueil Hall, a place which still stands in Boston, and where the first concert to support the creation of our hymnbook was held. Rev. Parker is talking about the War with Mexico 150 years ago.

Mr. Chairman, we have come here to consult for the honor of our country. The honor and dignity of the United States are in danger. I love my country; I love her honor.

(But now) we are in a war; the signs of war are seen here in Boston. It is a mean and infamous war we are fighting. It is a great boy fighting a little one. The big boy tells solemn lies to make his side seem right. He even wants the little boy to pay for the expenses of the quarrel.

The friends of the war say, "Mexico has invaded our territory!" When it is shown that it is we who have invaded hers, then it is said, "Aye, but she owes us money." Better to say outright, "Mexico has land, and we want to steal it!"

This war is waged for a mean and infamous purpose, for the extension of slavery…

President (Polk) tells us it is treason to talk so! Treason, is it? Treason to discuss a war which the government made, and which the people are made to pay for? If it be treason to speak against the war, what was it to make the war, to ask for 50,000 men and $74,000,000 for the war? Why, if the people cannot discuss the war they have got to fight and to pay for, who under heaven can?

We have come to Fanieul Hall to talk about the war. It is rather late, but better late than never. I know my voice is a feeble one in Massachusetts. I have no mountainous position from whence to look down and overawe the multitude; I have no background of political reputation to echo my words. I am but a plain, humble man; but I have a background of truth to sustain me, and the justice of heaven arches over my head! I call on you all to protest against this most infamous war, in the name of the state, in the name of the country, in the name of humanity-yes, and in the name of God. Leave not our memory infamous among the nations because we loved land plundered in war, but loved not the eternal justice of an all-judging God.

Sermon: Violence and Religion [Next][back to top]

Teaching, I think, is always the best way to learn. I have taught classes in seminaries and colleges, in congregations, and I once taught for a year in a grade-school in Berkeley, California.

And I can assure you that, at the end of each course of teaching, I knew a lot more than I did when I first entered the room.

I am now teaching a course here at the church on World Religions. It's fun and exhilarating to explore this aspect of our common life. It's a blast to cross so many oceans with my mind and heart, to bring together so many ideas that at first seem odd, then strangely comforting or delightful.

However, I am learning already that a class in World Religions runs into difficulty right away, because that pesky word "religion" seems to be caught in a sticky, tangled web of so many contradictory definitions that it's hard to imagine setting it free in my lifetime.

First, you have your psychological definitions, like George Bataille's, who says religion is "the search for lost intimacy."

Or you have clearly negative definitions, like that of Saloman Reinach, "Religion is a body of scruples which impedes the free exercise of our faculties."

Or there is Marx's famous definition, a much more poetic set of words than people usually remember: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart in a heartless world, the spirit in unspiritual conditions. It is the opium (i.e. the painkiller) of the people."

The great Humanist preacher, John Dietrich, says very simply that "Religion is a function in humanity's struggle for existence. The struggle is the primary thing, and religion is one of the tools humanity has forged to attain a satisfactory and, if possible, delightful existence." Calling it a "tool" makes it sound pretty cold and utilitarian, but I think I see where he is going.

Our own Sophia Fahs, champion of Unitarian Universalist religious education methods, offers this charming positive definition: "The religious way sees what the eyes alone fail to see, the intangibles at the heart of every phenomenon."

And then there are the many, many modern people in the West who distance themselves from the word "religion" constantly by claiming for themselves the oft-quoted proverb, "I am spiritual, not religious."

On the other hand, some of the older and middle-aged Humanists in our Unitarian Universalist congregations consider themselves religious, but not spiritual. So you can see how maddening it gets if you take seriously what "everyone" says and try to find some common thread in them.

And then there are those who think the whole lot of people claiming to be either spiritual or religious should just be written off as fools. I have to admit there have been clearly times in my life when I would have voted for that one.

But obviously, in order to teach my class, I had to make a choice of one definition, from all the hundreds I know, in order not to lose my mind. So I am using a definition based on one used by one of our ministers in New York City, Forrester Church. "Religion is our structured human response to the dual realities that we live at all and that one day we shall die." It's broad enough to include small, rather mystical or emotional religious groups born yesterday, and large enough to embrace extremely organized religious groups a millennium or two old. It makes no self-serving distinctions between religions that affirm a God, like most, if not all, forms of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and religions that do not affirm a God, like most, if not all, forms of Buddhism, Jainism and some forms of Advaita Hinduism. It can include very localized religions like Bon, Oomoto, Agonshu, Mapuche, Ganda and Mende, and highly complex international religions like Zen Buddhism or the Roman Catholic Church.

Now, among many progressive and well- educated people, it's common to assert that "religion" is somehow responsible for much of the violence that goes on around the globe. I just heard the truly great American comedian George Carlin on television the other night, ranting at length about this. I have to admit I laughed as heartily as the television audience did, for Carlin is simply terrific at his gruff and pointed shtick.

And I suspect many of us in this room remember a verse or two of the John Lennon song, Imagine, which lifts up a vision of world transformed for the better:

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

"And no religion, too."

It's been a dream of many people for a long time. A world without religion. Even long ago in Roman times some of the great philosophers protested against religion because of the violence associated with it. In his famous De Rerum Natura (The Nature of Things), the Roman genius Lucretius (TITVS LVCRETIVS CARVS) exclaimed with angry clarity, "TANTVM RELIGIO POTVIT SVADERE MALORVM (Oh, how many evils religion has caused!)

And some have gone further than to write books or rant in comedy clubs. Certain powerful states in the 20th century stood against religion in any form as national policy; they organized against it, taught against it, and even established huge museums that ridiculed the excesses and silliness of various religions. I visited one of these museums in St. Petersburg in Russia, and I have to admit it was certainly quite impressive. Others went further. Leaders, like the famous Rumanian head of state Ceaucescu, literally had church buildings bulldozed into the ground. And though the ministers at the Unitarian Church in Prague got to keep their historic church building, they had to submit their sermons to the censors, and were told what they were to preach by a government committee. And the chief leaders in both Albania and Cambodia routinely had clergy killed as government policy.

Now when I list such acts of violence, those who are against "religion" (the definition of which they are very clear on) are very quick to come at me with an impressive litany of religious violence, almost, but not quite, suggesting that those stupid religious types, well, got what they deserved. The Crusades always come first, followed by the Spanish Inquisition and the Christian pogroms against the Jews. The St. Valentine's Day massacre and the witch trials are also lifted up, both the ones in Europe and the ones in the Anglo-American Colonies.

Look, I know about all these things. I graduated from high school. And hey, as an amateur historian in my own right, I can add a few more, less famous, examples of violence associated with "religion." For example, there's the enslavement of the Bogomil people by cardinals in the Church of Rome, the burning of Miguel Servet by the Protestants, Giordano Bruno by the Catholics, and the Jews by both. Then there is the complete obliteration of a whole people, the Albigensian Cathari of France, by the armies of the very poorly named Innocent the Third around the year 1200.

Next on the list come the famous conflicts between the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, the Hindus and Muslims in central Asia, and the whole mess in the Middle East. People are also quick to point out the lack of protest by Japanese Shinto Shrines, Italian Catholic Churches and German Protestant Churches in regards to the debacle we now call the Second World War, when over 11 million people died miserable, violent deaths.

And yes, it's true, I personally hear many disgusting reports of clergy telling women to put up with their violent husbands or boyfriends as an accepted practice of their religion. And I know so called "Christian" schools where brutal corporal punishment for the students is supported by quotations from the Book of Proverbs in the Bible.

And this brings up an even more basic problem…the religious scriptures themselves. After all, the central Christian narrative lifts up the torture and violent death of an innocent man as a sacrifice acceptable to a loving God, and the Hebrew scriptures tell us that the Lord (Yahweh) asked King Saul to slaughter a whole people, man, woman, child and animal alike, a truly awful story.

The beloved Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita is set on a bloody battlefield. Folks in the Dispatch this week have been debating the interpretation of violence in the Qur'an. And even the Zen Buddhists, justly famous for their smiling serenity, routinely tell tales about nervous postulants coming to the monastery only to have the head honcho pull a knife from under his coat and cut off one of their fingers. This is an act of violence that chilled me to the bone me the first time I read about it even though the story claims that the act "enlightened" the bleeding young student.

OK, OK, so both sides have a point. Religion and violence often go together. But I have to insist that it's still true that the anti-religious types are no less violent. Sorry, but it's true. Tiananmen Square was not about God or the Buddha. Kent State was not about Jesus. Vietnam, Chechnya, Cambodia and, yes, Gettysburg, were not about the Great Mother Goddess, the fast of Ramadan or the why's and how's of the Lord's Supper.

And yes, yes, I agree, violence has been blessed by religious types…the famous priest who cried out, "Deus Vult!"…(God Wills It)… at the beginning of the First Crusade is a case in point. But we are not wholly honest if we forget to mention that a largest portion of the Crusaders were no more "religious" than Pol Pot or Lenin. They were mercenaries who were paid in gold by powerful people, powerful people who were far more interested in plunder than in the ownership of the tomb of a dead Galilean in Jerusalem.

Furthermore, the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland is mostly not religious, but economic in nature. The Catholics are poor and scramble to get by, the Protestants are far more well off and hold positions of power. Tell me that inequitable economic conditions have nothing to do with violence and I will tell you, "You have much to learn, and I pray you don't learn it the hard way."

Because of my own personal experience over the years, I'd wager a whole lot of "religious" people are nowhere near as fanatical as the pious smiling television loud mouths, or the senators and congressional fat-cats calling publicly on God to robe them in righteousness as they vote down welfare, and deny marriage or due process to whomsoever they choose. As the Galilean peasant Jesus quipped of these latter type folks, "Never mind them…they already have their reward." My parents attend Mass on Sunday and are not getting ready to kill people or destroy lives. My best friend Richard doesn't miss schul on Friday, and yet he doesn't support injustice, mayhem or violence anywhere, including in Palestine/Israel. My Muslim friend Babar is sweet and kind, and has an enviable relationship with his family. When he reads through the Qur'an, he holds on to those passages which are noble and kind, and lets those shape his honest life. He's not in favor of killing people in Israel/Palestine either.

So to say that to be "religious," per se, is to be prone to violence is one of these sweeping, universal statements that just irks me for its lack of humility. "Those religious people are violent. I am not, because I am not a believer." It's both simplistic and unhistorical, and frankly, besides being a tad self-congratulatory, it just does not get us anywhere. I wonder…does anyone think that all religion can be eradicated by force? If so, remember the words of a frustrated Soviet leader, Nikita Krushchev, "Trying to get rid of religion is like pounding a nail with a hammer…the harder you hit it, the deeper it goes."

This is how I see it. Violence is a human expression. Some humans claim to be religious, some do not. But all of us are human, and thus, each of us can participate in violence, either by what we do or what we do not do.

Now, humans are violent for any number of reasons, some natural and some social. We know from biological study that some men with certain extra chromosomes are prone to violence. Sometimes a brain anomaly will elicit violence from a person usually known to be calm and peaceful…I remember the mother of a friend of mine who literally had to be restrained with straps to keep from leaping at you and tearing at you with her teeth. It was a lesion on her brain, not a moral collapse.

But then there is the systemic violence which pervades whole cultures…patterns like racism which insinuates itself into every institution, religious or secular, anti-religious or political. Racism is hardly interested in your theology of baptism or your understanding of Torah or Hadith…it's only interested that, if you are white you are blinded to what goes on around you and are co-opted at every turn, and if you are person of color, you can count on an uphill battle for the rest of your life.

Yes, yes, religious culture has certainly supported sexist violence…but this is largely because religious culture is always part of a national culture. The sexism I experienced in my own family was far more cultural than Catholic, far more unquestioned than even the creed.

Furthermore, there are feminist readings of the scriptures and anti-feminist readings of the scriptures…your social setting and your consciousness of imbalance determines how you read things, not whether you believe in God or Goddess or nothing. A feminist might read the scriptures freely and find things there that a culturally bound sexist person simply cannot see. A poor man in Guatemala reads the scriptures differently than an upper middle class Presbyterian or Unitarian Universalist in Worthington, I assure you. And a gay man in grief for a hundred friends lost to violence, indifference and denial might find something in the book of Isaiah no one else could possibly discover. This tells me that your social setting, or where you stand, in the image of the children's story told us this morning, tells us what color the coat is. But the coat, I am telling you this morning, is actually both colors. Always has been, always will be.

In the same way, you can read human history from any cultural or belief position, too. For example, I am in favor of peace on earth anywhere, and social justice everywhere, yet I claim a religion for myself, this religion. So because of my social and belief position, when I read religious writers, I read Dorothy Day and Aung San Suu Kyi and Martin Luther King and Mohandas Gandhi, and Carter Heyward and James Cone and Gustavo Gutierrez and William Penn, and Erasmus and Menno Simons and Tolstoy and Rubem Alves, and Rabbi Waskow and Iqbal of Pakistan and Ashoka. And from our own local tradition, W. E. Channing and Theodore Parker and Waldo Emerson and Susan B. Anthony and Clara Barton and John Haynes Holmes and Adin Ballou. Each of these people, and a hundred thousand more in their camps were, or are deeply religious, and they saw, or see, their religion as supporting their anti-violent lives, not checking them.

Theodore Parker for example saw his fight against the unjust Mexican War as rooted in his religious claims. His words ring true for me today as we move toward a war that, at least to me, seems no more just or honest than the Mexican war was. My religion encourages me to question truisms and tactics and violence everywhere and anywhere. It insists I reason, not automatically believe, feel, not lose myself in unfeeling abstractions, conventions and distortions. And Aung San Suu Kyi…can she be any clearer that her protest against her nations violent repressions is rooted in her religion, Theravada Buddhism? Ask Martin Luther King if he could make a move without the support of his God. Ask Gandhi the same question. Or the non-theistic Buddhists who protested the growing list of atrocities we read about in Vietnam about the source of their religious strength.

Sure non-religious types protested too. But, of course, that's my point. Just as violence can arise from both the religious or the irreligious, so peace, love and compassion can rise from either group too. I submit that human beings are what they are and always have been…complex, cultural, biological, social and emotional, rational, irrational, frightened and brave, loving and fearing and that violence and love both wear a human face.

No matter how you define religion, negatively or positively, or functionally or psychologically, no matter if you claim religion for yourself or reject it utterly, no matter how it's defined, it seems to me that, in the end, how we live our lives, how we live our answers to the questions posed by violence, will tell me all that I need to know about who you are and who I am. And, as a man who is forever a teacher and forever a student, I find I never tire of such learning and such knowing.

Prayer [back to top]

(The sutras are Buddhist scriptures. They were written many centuries after Siddartha died. Siddartha, the historical Buddha. So I thought I could join the legacy of Sutra writers in good faith).

Thus have I heard: One day the Buddha was teaching in the Deer Park. A woman and a man from the nearby village came up to him and said: "You know and we know that we live in a world that is imperfect, a flawed world filled with violence and war and terror and poverty without end. We want to be quit of such a world, and go from what is imperfect to what is perfect. We want to live perfect lives."

The Buddha looked at the dry leaves falling from the tree branches at the touch of the wind. Then he began to sing this song:

"There is one way to be perfect,
and that is to know that one is imperfect.

Resist violence, but do not imagine
you can, by resisting, escape violence.

Resist war and its carnage of children, certainly
but do not think that your heart is pure,
your own motives flawless.

Only in the imperfection of your humanity
can you struggle. Only in the imperfection of
your humanity can you live.

Begin with your imperfection, love as best
as you can, work to end violence, but do not
imagine you will be successful in your lifetime.

For perfection is not in the finish but in the
struggle, not in the dream of peace but in the
struggle for a just peace."

The man and the woman went back to their
Village, not entirely happy with what the teacher
said, but they had to admit that his song was in
their heart, and their heart would not be silent.

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