By Liberal Things Shall We Stand

“But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by
liberal things shall he stand.”

--Isaiah 32: 8

My text for the day must be a thorn in the side of those biblical literalists for whom the word “liberal” has taken on an almost demonic overtone during the last two decades. One doesn’t need to listen to Rush Limbaugh and other conservative pundits for long before concluding that liberalism--whether of the political, economic or religious variety--is at the root of every evil.

This morning I would like to offer a modest defense of at least the religious variety of liberalism, since that is the variety with which I am most familiar. Not because I am an opponent of all things conservative--I’m from Maine, for God’s sake; and I actually believe that truth, in religion as in most other things, lies somewhere in the middle, between the liberal and the conservative view of things. But a defense, nonetheless, because I believe that liberalism, particularly in its religious embodiment, is just as valuable as it has ever been, and stands as an essential corrective to a natural human tendency toward conservatism, certainty, and absolutism which can inhibit our progress toward a more just and humane world.

I believe it was Winston Churchill who made a remark to the effect that anyone who is not a liberal in youth has no heart, and anyone who is not a conservative in old age has no head. As I grow older, I actually see the wisdom of his remark! But this morning I would like to argue in favor of heart and youth, and to look at some of the positive contributions of religious liberalism.

For the translators of the King James Version of the Bible, liberal was obviously not yet a dirty word. And why should it have been? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word liberal stands for intellectual enlargement and refinement; generosity and open-heartedness; abundance; freedom from restraint; freedom from narrow prejudice; open-mindedness; freedom from bigotry; and openness to new ideas. “By liberal things shall we stand,” indeed.

I confess, though, that I am the product of a “liberal” education. In my case, I have nothing to regret. I actually thought that education had to do with intellectual enlargement and refinement. I believe that is what I was offered the opportunity to receive. I am still a believer in liberal education, in spite of all the recent misplaced emphasis on the practical outcomes of education. The idea that people might receive an education that leads to a job, but that doesn’t lead to intellectual enlargement and refinement, actually frightens me.

If education should broaden our horizons, how much more so religion. Religion, which means simply “to rebind together,” has to do with making connections and finding wholeness. It has also, necessarily, to do with ultimate questions. Such questions are by their nature unanswerable with any degree of certainty. Why was I born? What is the purpose of life? Why must I die? These are the questions with which religion has to do.

Some religions have actually claimed to know the answers; most of them, in fact, make such a claim. Religious liberalism, on the other hand, has not. Religious liberalism by its nature abhors absolutes. It believes in small-t truths, not large-T Truth. We who call ourselves religious liberals believe that truth is still unfolding, that in the words of one of our great liberal hymns, “revelation is not sealed, truth and right are still revealed.” As theologian James Luther Adams once wrote, “Religious liberalism depends on the principle that ‘revelation’ is continuous. Meaning has not been finally captured. Nothing is complete, and thus nothing is exempt from criticism.”

Bill Schulz, a former President of the Unitarian Universalist Association and a former member of this church, elaborates further:

When we Unitarian Universalists proclaimed that “revelation is not sealed,” we had it almost right, but not quite. It is not just that revelation is not sealed; revelation is not sealable. If there is one thing that follows from the New Physics, it is this: the perspective from which we observe the world changes what we see. Look at an electron in one way and it looks like a wave; look at it in another and it looks like a particle. Mystery lies curled into the very heart of being like a worm in an apple.

Aristotelian logic was wrong. We do not have to choose between A and Not-A; the same thing can be both. The first conclusion we draw from the New Physics is that even the most sophisticated instruments of observation cannot touch the ineffable. The first Unitarian Universalist affirmation which we can make is that the wonders of creation outspill every category into which we try to fit them.

Many years ago, historian Earl Morse Wilbur delineated three such defining characteristics of Unitarianism in both its American and its European incarnations: those characteristics were freedom, the use of reason in matters of religion, and tolerance of other religious viewpoints. To these foundational principles of liberal religion we might add, in deference to our Transcendentalist ancestors, a sense of awe and mystery about the universe.

What these principles tell us is that, first of all, religious liberals have a fierce belief in individual freedom of conscience. No one should be coerced to believe something that he or she cannot believe. Second, religion should be subjected to the use of our God-given human reason. Religion needs no protection from the exercise of our reason. The object of applying our reason is to achieve an ever-closer approximation to truth. Third, because we can never be certain that our way is the only or the right way, we must always exercise tolerance toward the beliefs of others, a tolerance which is not afraid to seek the truth and which is not indifferent to the very real and sometimes destructive differences between religious worldviews. And fourth, we must be humble. There are some things we shall never know, and some mysteries which shall abide, in spite of our best efforts at understanding.

Clarence Skinner, a great early 20th century Universalist religious leader, once defined religious liberalism this way:

Liberalism is not a body of doctrine and never can be defined in static terms. It can never be inherited, but must always be won by a new battle for each generation.

It is not a law to be written on the statute books, or a creed to be engraved on tablets of stone, but it is rather a flame lighting a series of fires. The logs turn to ashes, but before they die they pass on the living spark to start a new conflagration.

Religious liberals, as the morning’s reading suggested, are open to the possibility of change. They are willing to openly and honestly question their convictions, rather than to regard them as final. It is not that we have no convictions or beliefs, but rather that we do not presume to know the final truth, whether about God or about existence, either for ourselves or others. And we must be willing to change our convictions if a better way presents itself.

When I think about what it means to be a religious liberal, I think about the belief that my religious convictions must be my own. It is not important what others tell me to believe if I cannot believe it myself. I think about the belief that human beings are improvable, if not perfectible, through education, through the development of reason, and not least through the motive power of love. I think about my responsibility for the welfare of others, and to the creation of the Kingdom of God here on earth, for as James Luther Adams also reminds us, “. . .Religious liberalism affirms the moral obligation to direct one’s efforts toward the establishment of a just and loving community.” Religious liberals believe in trying to change this world for the better.

Religious liberalism means living an examined life, one in which all my prejudices and pre-conceived notions must be confronted, and one in which I must remain open to new ideas. This is an ongoing challenge. In our own time, for example, we have been challenged to examine our ideas about race and homosexuality. As we know, confronting our own demons and our own fears of the Other are never easy.

Religious liberalism means having the flexibility to change and to grow in all of our understandings. It is not an easy way. It means that our inner world is always expanding and must never be allowed to contract. It means having to live with uncertainty. It means being open to the ideas and convictions of others as well as our own. As Unitarian Universalist minister Forrester Church has written,

. . .We value one another’s thinking. We respect one another’s search. We honor it, even where it differs from our own. We resist imposing our perception of the truth upon one another. Embracing a kind of theological pluralism we affirm the human importance of our joint quest for meaning in life without insisting upon the ultimacy of any single set of theological criteria.

In liberal religion there is great promise if, in freedom and openness, we honor and--in symbol, story, and song--if we image the mystery of whole persons alive for a time, together in the midst of a reality which is unimaginably full and rich.

Finally, though, let me just add that conservatism is not necessarily incompatible with the liberal religious view that I have attempted to illuminate this morning. For there will always be a role for those who wish to conserve the past and for those who take a more cautious approach to life’s great questions. Without an adequate view of our history, we can know neither where we have come from nor where we are headed. Within our liberal religious movement, there have always been those conservative liberals whose feet are solidly anchored in the world, in institutions and ideas from the past that are worth all our efforts toward preservation. Both perspectives, it seems to me, are necessary for a healthy religious worldview, and, indeed, for a healthy life. And, besides, one of the things religious liberalism affirms is that the world is a world of paradox!

The prophet Isaiah said, “The liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand.” What he seems to have meant is that nobleness and generosity, openness and a sense of abundance, are the only ways to achieve a just and lasting peace and a loving community. Later in the same passage, Isaiah speaks words of promise to those who shall walk in this liberal way:

And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of
righteousness quietness and assurance forever.

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock