An atheist sermon from this past Sunday for TRUE PATRIOTS.

[sfwriter]

Hi there,

As an atheist, sermons are not my usual fare.

This is a note I sent Rev. Jane at the First Unitarian Church in Springfield, MO. She borrowed a good chunk of it for the September 12 sermon, adding in some awesome expansion on our responsibilities as UUs and the framing of the need for action in spite of everything from fear to snarky comments.

This is a one off letter, written in a single night, driven by anger and Chocolaty Yoo Hoos. Please forgive this author any shortcomings therein.

“OK, Here it is.

My logic and reasoning behind my patriotism and why this current crisis of intolerance is so disturbing. I wish I could remember what I said to you the other night, but it must have gone something along the lines of how offended I was when one of these bigots waves a flag. A real patriot would fight for the rights of Muslims to build a mosque. I’m sure that’s what had my ire up that week, but as an atheist, I find myself in a frequent state of patriotic befuddlement.

Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida and his followers plan a book burning on Saturday that is almost universally reviled by Americans, as it should be. (Remember, this will be YESTERDAY's BOOK BURNING by the time of the sermon, if it even happens. We can still hope for this man’s better angels to prevail.) (NOTE: They did.)

In their worldview, the Koran is a weapon and this view isn’t limited to just the book burning pastor and his congregation. There are still plenty of Americans who would wrap themselves in the flag and stop the construction of a mosque in New York City or Staten Island or Nashville and Murfreesboro Tennessee.

In response to calls from Hillary Clinton for respect and tolerance in the face of this book burning threat for example, “Sam The Man” on the website Free Republic said:

“It is war and this act is a weapon and we will not surrender our weapons.”

Generally, I’m no fan of politics from the pulpit on the left or right. This is a place where I come personally to recharge my batteries for these sorts of struggles, to reset my moral compass, and consider the ethical implications of my actions. I treasure this place as one where I can feel welcome and valued. I’m sure there are many Muslims who feel the same way about their mosque and Christians who feel the same about their church. For the sake of a pluralistic society, I certainly hope so.

But this question doesn’t stand in isolation, and If I’m to profess my faith, especially the first and fourth principles (worth and dignity, search for truth and meaning), then I am compelled to speak up in the face of such intolerance. And despite our constitution, despite the numerous and clear intentions of the founders, it is a fight I return to again and again, and I am nowhere near alone in either this observation or this struggle.

Rabbi Sherwin Wine was a founding figure in the movement of Humanistic Judiasim, founding first congregation of Humanistic Judaism in 1963. He observed that not all visions of America are equal:

“There are two visions of America. One precedes our founding fathers and finds its roots in the harshness of our puritan past. It is very suspicious of freedom, uncomfortable with diversity, hostile to science, unfriendly to reason, contemptuous of personal autonomy. It sees America as a religious nation. It views patriotism as allegiance to God. It secretly adores coercion and conformity. Despite our constitution, despite the legacy of the Enlightenment, it appeals to millions of Americans and threatens our freedom.”

“The other vision finds its roots in the spirit of our founding revolution and in the leaders of this nation who embraced the age of reason. It loves freedom, encourages diversity, embraces science and affirms the dignity and rights of every individual. It sees America as a moral nation, neither completely religious nor completely secular. It defines patriotism as love of country and of the people who make it strong. It defends all citizens against unjust coercion and irrational conformity.”

As an outspoken atheist, he faced this first America head on, but his experience was no different than that of gay Americans or African Americans or Hispanic Americans or Muslim Americans today.

His observation could stand true for any Unitarian Universalist today:

“This second vision is our vision. It is the vision of a free society. We must be bold enough to proclaim it and strong enough to defend it against all its enemies.”

It is not just that the first vision of America is wrong. Simple wrongheadedness could be endured, but in their fervor and zeal to proclaim a christian nation and burn books, they diminish America and do us harm. There are plenty of generals and middle east analysts who have lined up to articulate the actual damage to be done on the actual battlefields in terms of moral and the recruitment of our enemies. What I’m talking about is more subtle. It is a shearing of the very fabric of our collective society.

On 9/11, the cost in blood reflected the true nature of our nation. Every victim was not christian. Every victim was not white, and many of the victims were not even American. The dead came from 70 countries, drawn here by our openness.

There were dishwashers and CEOs and members of every faith in our nation. Of the 2,997 dead, NOT including the hijackers, the Muslims represented approximately half a percent, mirroring their representation in the population at large according to the Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life.

Muslim Mohammad S. Chowdhury who worked for Windows of the World atop the towers. Two days after the attack, his child was born fatherless.

Muslim Khalid Shahid was 25 and planned to be married in November. He worked for Cantor Fitzgerald which lost 355 employees that day.

Muslim Touri Bolourchi also died that day. She was a retired nurse who had emigrated from Iran, a place where religious intolerance was the rule. The America she chose was that second America of inclusion.

She chose a place of equality, where laws trumped dogma, be it sharia or rabbinical or christian.

Maryland State Senator and constitutional law professor Jamie Raskin summed it up pretty well during his state’s fight for marriage equality. He said “People place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution; they don't put their hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.”

I think this diversity was born out of the fact our nation was founded by Christians... BAD CHRISTIANS.

Our founding father’s ignored biblical doctrine and took their cues from the enlightenment. Had they been good Christians, they would have heeded the words of Peter:

1 Peter 2:13: "For the Lord's sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right."

Or the words of Paul:

Paul wrote in Romans 13:1: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resist authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."

Certainly there was no shortage of loyalists on our shores, good Christians all. Our nation was founded by those with the courage to look beyond Peter and Paul.

The very founder of our faith, on the Unitarian side at least, had to flee from good Christians in England who saw their monarch as the ordained hand of god. In America, Joseph Priestly helped found the First Unitarian Church of Pennsylvania and counted Thomas Jefferson amongst his admirers.

Jefferson and the other founding fathers didn’t base our nation on biblical law, but rather on PAGAN democracy. They chose the model of the Greeks and the Romans in setting up a Republic ruled not by divine right, but popular selection.

Far from an outlier in the establishment of our nation, Unitarianism rests at its very heart. Our principles, refined from the firmament of these ideas, call us to defend this pluralism.

This is not to say they sought to establish a godless, secular state, but rather they sought a place where choices in the divine were personal, rather than political matters. Today, that means a nation of 380 million philosophies and theologies.

But that amount of freedom comes with certain responsibilities and requires a true patriot to make certain sacrifices. The struggle between the two Americas does not happen in isolation and silence is a boon to the other side.

As an atheist, I am profoundly annoyed to find myself defending the Muslim faith and the Quran from a good old fashioned book burning. Not so long ago, I might have ignored the whole thing as a dogmatic struggle irrelevant to my life and beliefs. As a Unitarian and a Patriot, I do not have that luxury.

I’m not the first patriot to notice this fact. Most of us may not want to burn a quran or march in the street with a sign telling others who god hates and though not all are guilty, all are responsible.

Reflecting on the Women’s Suffrage movement, Susan B. Anthony said:

“I tell them I have worked 40 years to make the Women’s Suffrage platform broad enough for Atheists and Agnostics to stand upon, and now if need be I will fight the next 40 to keep it Catholic enough to permit the straightest Orthodox religionist to speak or pray and count her beads upon.”

In this struggle of the two Americas, that acceptance and that openness are the very symbols of our strength.

Struggling through the turmoil of the late 60s, Bobby Kennedy said:

“Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.”

Ironically, Franklin Delano Roosevelt would agree with Pastor Jones on one point, books are weapons. Not so very long ago, in a brief moment when our entire nation agreed who the villains were at a book burnings, a propaganda poster was issued with a large book in flames while gleeful dancing Nazis cavorted below. It had this quote from FDR to the American Booksellers Association in 1942:

“We all know that books burn—yet we have the greater knowledge that books cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory.... In this war, we know, books are weapons.”

The same goes for the dreams of nations. They do not burn. When those planes struck the towers, our ideals didn’t burn. When Pastor Jones burns a Quran, our diversity is not diminished. The second America, the dream of our founding fathers, only dies when we remain silent.

Our faith calls on us to speak up and take action. Staying home in a funk because the world isn’t perfect is not an option. Staying silent because you fear them is not an option.

Our nation was born in the crucible of this very struggle and perhaps it shall always be so, but it was a nation born by those who had the strength to choose freedom over dogma. It was founded by those who had the courage to speak up. It is a nation renewed in every generation for those to follow.

In your actions, what nation will be founded for tomorrow?

Where the law says you can be stopped because you are brown, patriots must speak up.

Where the crescent and the moonpies face off in Nashville over the building of a mosque or community center, we patriots must speak up.

Where love and commitment are condemned because of the sex of the partners, WE TRUE PATRIOTS must speak up.”