The Persistence of Hate

September 24, 2000

Regardless of one's political affiliation, the recent elevation of Connecticut's Senator Joseph Lieberman to Vice Presidential candidate should be seen as a victory for religious pluralism, understanding, and freedom here in the United States. Many have pointed out the similarities between Lieberman, a Jew, and John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, in breaking down long-standing religious barriers to political involvement. Perhaps the only thing we should feel badly about is that it has been forty years since Kennedy broke the Protestant barrier to high office. Though Jewish people have been prominent in business, medicine, education, the arts, and the law, not to mention religion, it has been much harder to break the Christian barrier.

While excitement about the selection of Lieberman has run high within the Jewish community, there have also been fears of an anti-Semitic backlash.

The sad fact of the matter is, that while anti-Catholicism has for the most part become unfashionable (though by no means non-existent), anti-Semitism is still alive and well among many sectors of our population. Perhaps, win or lose, Lieberman's participation in the current presidential campaign will help to alleviate some of the irrational fears about Jewish people which still persist in our country. I suspect that it will, and it is certainly my hope.

But the persistence of hate--and the proliferation of so-called "hate groups" in our time, particularly on the internet--tempers my optimism somewhat. Indeed, I must admit that I am amazed and disheartened by the persistence of hate.

Hate, according to my dictionary, is "an emotion of extreme dislike or aversion; detestation, abhorrence, hatred." It's pretty bad when the word you are defining is its own definition. I confess that I have always had a hard time with hate. I don't really understand it, though I suspect that it has roots in fear and jealousy, and is often exacerbated by economic inequality. But, thank God, I have never felt hatred toward anyone because of their religious, ethnic, racial, or sexual characteristics or orientation. I am sometimes, probably too often, irritated by people, and occasionally disgusted by their behavior, but hatred I do not understand. I may be naive, but I do not "detest" or "abhor" anyone, and I am thankful for my Unitarian Universalist religious upbringing and its roots in the Judeo-Christian ethical tradition for that absence of malice toward my fellow human beings. I am glad that the parable of the Good Samaritan was part of my early religious education. Never underestimate the power of a good story.

In a place like Newburyport, it can be easy to forget about the persistence of hate, though the occasional swastika painted in the streets of our town should give us pause. But in other parts of the world, hate is still palpable In Eastern Europe, where I visited during the past summer, hatred, or at least strong distrust, among ethnic groups simmers just below the surface of civility, and as we have seen in the case of the former Yugoslavia, it can sometimes emerge at the least provocation. As recently as the early 1990's, ethnic tensions between Hungarians and Romanians in Transylvania resulted in riots and bloodshed. Unfortunately, differences in language and religion sometimes contribute to the lack of understanding among these groups.

And our visits to the old Jewish synagogue in Budapest and to the Jewish quarter in Prague offered us a grim reminder of the extreme fruits of hatred within our own lifetimes. In Prague, the names of over 87,000 Czechoslovakian Jews who lost their lives during the holocaust have been inscribed on the interior walls of a former synagogue. But artwork which is also displayed there, created by the so-called "Children of Terezin," in the former Nazi death-camp, are a poignant reminder of the persistence of joy and hope and love under the most horrendous circumstances.

Pluralism is fine in theory, but there must be some common "glue" which binds us together in all of our differences. In the United States, we are fortunate to have our democratic ideals, imperfectly though they sometimes put into practice, to bring us together in spite of our diversity. But the only way it can work is if we are Americans first, and members of ethnic, religious and other groups second.

Part of what makes me most proud in watching our Olympic athletes is the realization of the many different nationalities and races which they represent. Some are only recent arrivals to our shores, but they are all Americans. At our best, we can still serve as a model for the rest of the world in its peoples' struggles to live together harmoniously. Though we too often stray from our ideals, we are still better off than most places in the world when it comes to dealing constructively with diversity.

I am proudest to be an American when I observe that diversity, and I am always wary of claims or calls for a kind of cultural or religious homogeneity which would ignore the very real differences among us. It is a difficult experiment that we are about here in the United States, a delicate balancing act between appreciation for cultural diversity and commitment to a common goal or ideal.

Several years ago, my former colleague Alec Craig entered a store in Maine where a sign on the cash register contained the message, "Thank God I'm white." Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident in my beloved home state. The Maine Progressive newspaper has documented a veritable litany of such incidents. It's a reminder of how far we still have to go to overcome racism. And it's a reminder of how hatred and prejudice., and their offspring violence, continue to invoke the name of God.

That sign, of course, could just as easily have read, "thank God I'm Christian," or "thank God I'm straight," or you name it. As religious people who embrace a different vision, a vision of diversity and appreciation for difference, we must always be prepared to speak out when the name of God is invoked on behalf of hatred and prejudice.

I am all too aware of my own failures to speak out in the face of racism and homophobia. But I am thankful that my religious upbringing planted a little seed of discomfort deep within me so that my heart has not completely hardened. I know, on an intimately personal level, how much work is still to be done, and how I sometimes fail to do my part. I need the constant challenge which my religious worldview provides.

Forrester Church, minister of our church in New York City, has spoken eloquently of that challenge:

It's easy, too easy, to love those who resemble us. In God's eye, if I read the scriptures right, such love is essential but not sufficient. Our challenge, God's challenge to us, is to love those who are different. Male and Female. Black and Brown and Red and White. Christian and Moslem and Buddhist and Hindu and Jew and Agnostic and Atheist. Yes, and straight and bi-[sexual] and Gay.

It is not easy to love what we don't know and may not understand. It's a lot easier not to look, not to feel, not to get involved.

Quite a few years ago, now, in response to some fundamentalist gay-bashing in the editorial pages of the Attleboro Sun Chronicle, I wrote a response in which I defended my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters based on the biblical ideal of hospitality toward the stranger among us and the story of the Good Samaritan. I wrote, in part,

Religion can be either a force for good, a force for community, or a force for divisiveness, a force for chaos. It can either bring people together, or push them apart. I happen to think that religion ought to be a force for love and human kindness, especially toward the "strangers" in our midst. To place this in the current context of debate," I wrote, "some of those who are different than us may have
a homosexual orientation."

I went on to write about my belief that religion exists to promote an
ideal of the good, and of my sadness that religion is so often used, not to bring people together, but to separate them from one another. That it is used to justify, not only homophobia, but inter-ethnic strife and inter-religious hatred.
And I concluded,

At a certain level, most of us will remain strangers to one another. The challenge is that, once having accepted this reality, we continue to build and to live in communities where we work toward common goals and share common ideals. Recognizing that to live in the world is in a very real sense to live among strangers, and to be strangers ourselves, the challenge is to care for people, to work with them, to share the joy of life with them, even though we may never truly know them, never truly share their view of the world.

I will spare you the full text of the response I received to this letter, except to say that no one wrote to say that they agreed with my point of view. Among other things, my lone respondent accused me of ignoring sin and misreading the Bible, which he said "agrees that religion is a force of love and kindness . . . to an extent," and called for homosexuals to repent. But to quote my colleague Forrest Church again,

. . .If you read the prophets and the gospels carefully, one message resounds time and again. God is not on the side of the persecutors but on the side of the persecuted. The realm of heaven is revealed not at the banquet of the rich, but in the crumbs of the poor. Jesus, goodness knows, Jesus of all people, would far rather celebrate the humanity of the little one than the power of the ruling class.

I guess the bottom line is I'm too much of a universalist to believe that
God sets limits to our love and kindness, or that God loves only the straight and the white or the males or the Christians, or the Jews, for that matter. And I am compelled by my understanding of the Bible as a historical document, to read it selectively, as bound by time, and not literally.

Indeed, unlike the purveyors of hate in all places, I am convinced that we are all "God's children," whether we are repentant or not. And I thank God that I am part of a religion which, however short it falls of its ideals, nevertheless holds as its central theological principle that God is love, and that we are all inherently worthy of God's limitless love.

In spite of the persistence of hate, I believe that we have the capacity for change and, more important, most important, I believe that we have the capacity for love. I believe that we can love the stranger among us, unconditionally. I believe that there is hope for us yet.

But we have a long way to go in this world. Its cruelty, its stupidity, its hatred are all too real. Racism and homophobia are real. Ethnic and religious tensions and disagreements are real.

"How does a man bring a child into such a world," asks Mr. Tessler in the morning's reading. "How does he bring even a bagel?" The answer must be: with trepidation, but also with hope, and, we trust, with love.

We are only on this planet a short time. There is enough suffering in life without the additional suffering that we human beings create for ourselves.

May we have the courage to speak out in the face of hatred and prejudice. And may we all, in our separate journeys, and in the face of life's terrible questions, possess the conviction that we are God's children, worthy of God's love, and of our own. May we possess that conviction, not in spite of, but because of who we really are. May it be so.

Amen.

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock