A Sermon by Philip E. Devenish

First Congregational Church of Webster Groves, St. Louis, Missouri

June 18, 1995

The world of faith and the world of politics are in one sense far apart. And the world of faith and the world of politics are also in another sense very close together. Faith is about what we do with our solitariness. Do we use it to retreat into privacy? Then it is a small and selfish faith. Or do we use our solitariness to engage in the task of creating a more decent and a more thoughtful public world? Then faith is large and shared. Engagement is the fulfillment of faith. Faith is not politics, but faith needs politics to fulfill itself in public. Politics is not faith, but politics needs faith to have something decent and thoughtful to fulfill. Faith and politics; as far apart and as close together as any two things can be_really just two sides of the one coin of life in God's one world. The Christian tradition, and before it and then along with it, the Hebrew and the Jewish tradition, have always known this.

The history we live in now_here in America, in 1995_what is this like? What are the faith and politics of what is going on now like? Were do we find ourselves today? When we look at what is happening in faith and politics in our national life today, we see a situation in tremendous flux. We see a new consensus emerging very rapidly under the name of the "Christian coalition" or the "religious right". This consensus is new, it is faith-based, it is forming very rapidly, it is well-organized for direct political action, and it represents a significant segment of our population. Staking out the moral and spiritual high ground by calling itself "Christian" and by speaking of America as a "Christian nation", this new consensus does not hesitate to speak for God in its policies for the future of our country. This is the old, all-or-nothing mistake of absolutist politics, speaking for God and applying the deep and also high ideals that are appropriate to individuals to a group instead_and especially to itself and its own policies. Shame on it! As we can learn from our tradition, this is a mistake. It is the mistake of giving a single, absolute grounding for a mixed message of spiritual absolutes and historical relativities. It is the mistake of absolutism in politics.

Social policies are relative and of shades of gray; they are neither absolute nor black and white. They are human attempts not to go too far wrong in dealing with groups in society, not divinely authorized proposals to transform individuals. Social and political reform are about shaping structures in which individual persons can live, and can do so in decent enough fashion to be called to the standards and values for which they have been created. This will serve the "glory of the Lord" well enough. There is nothing to apologize for in being realistic in social and political life.

How, then, are we to move beyond this? How are we to move beyond the mistake of absolutism in politics? Some will say that there are no spiritual or moral absolutes. They will say that everything, including even basic values, is relative. This is their faith- claim, and they propose policies grounded in it. Such people ground their politics in the claims of certain human cultural groups, or in technology, or in short-term personal profits. This relativism is a mistake, as well.

But there is a way open to us in our politics that can learn from history and that can engage history, and that does not have to make either of these mistakes. We do not have to make the mistake of absolutism in politics that is made by the religious right. Nor do we have to make the mistake of rejecting insight into spiritual and moral values that are reliable and even absolute. It is open to us to speak for standards that are absolute, but with very inadequate knowledge of what the future may bring. We can move beyond absolutism in politics if we can distinguish faith from politics.

We live in a world in which we have to make decisions, and in which we have to try to look to the future as best we can. The fact that we cannot predict the future does not mean that we must not work toward it on the basis of standards for the present, standards and values that we believe are absolute and written on the human heart. We need to speak clearly and forcefully about standards and values, but we also need to speak cautiously and humbly about how these will work out in policies for the future.

I firmly believe that there is a way beyond absolutism in politics that is also a way beyond relativism. It is a way for practical decisions about what to do, and so it is a mixed way. It is a way for politics, and so it involves more than just talk. It involves action, and it involves organization. About this, the religious right is surely correct. Faith needs to be lived out. But it needs to be lived out right. This way beyond absolutism in politics is a way that cannot be afraid to speak of values that are absolute; but the values that it claims to be absolute really have to be so. They cannot be restrictive, they cannot be shallow, and they cannot be short-term. We need to try to learn from history. And so, we need to try to move beyond absolutism in politics.

We need to work together for policies that can create a society that is more decent, less extreme, more civil; to aim at making life less predatory, not so banal; or simply safer. These are more manageable goals; even if we are finding them hard enough. We should not claim for them any more in the way of results than they might actually be able to deliver. We should say that they are what they are_our best guesses, based on our best moral and spiritual insights, not prophecy spoken in God's name.

What we need today is the courage to speak as absolutely as we may about moral and spiritual insight that is as worthy of being absolute as it can be, and we need the gumption and confidence to put forward and to work for policies that do what can be done to move us toward a more decent and a more civil and a less predatory and less dangerous society. Let us claim what we really can claim, and no more. And let us try to deliver what we actually can hope to deliver, and no less.