We Are All Skeptics September 27, 2009 First Unitarian Church South Bend, Indiana The Reverend Harold W. Beu Minister

This past Thursday, Darlene Catello and Dale Gibson graciously invited me to go with them to the Hesburgh Center Auditorium at the University of Notre Dame to hear a lecture by Nicholas Wolterstorff, Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology and Fellow of Berkeley College at Yale University. The event was sponsored by the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. We can thank the late Joan Kroc for her philanthropic gifts that created this institute and have promoted peace and justice in the world. Thus, it made sense that Mr. Wolterstorff’s topic title was “Does Justice Matter?” One amusing note, at least I think it is amusing, before I begin. The Institute provided not only a free lecture but a free lunch after the lecture. We were told to take only one of each item, a sandwich, a bag of chips, a can of soda and one cookie. Well, when I got to the cookies, I was across an older man who was dressed in sports jacket and tie. I assumed he was one of the professors at Notre Dame. We both reached for the same Macadamia nut cookie, but then we both withdrew and insist that the other take the cookie, and so the man took the cookie. But when I took the next cookie, I said, “Well, I got the best cookie. Look at it, isn’t it beautiful.” Of course, I was trying to be funny, an often dangerous enterprise, but the man seemed perturbed and suddenly he just took a another cookie, as if to say, “See, I show you, you with the best cookie.” When I told Dale and Darlene about this interchange, we chuckled and reasoned that the man must have been a teacher of ethics. As to the talk itself, Mr. Wolterstorff made some interesting points about the difference between benevolence and justice. He told a story about being in South Africa back in 1976 during the time of apartheid. He was at a meeting with some Afrikaners and Africans. The Africans, naturally, talked about their disdain for the apartheid system of government, of being oppressed and being treated with disrespect. The Afrikaners, on the other hand, talked about how they often treated Africans with kindness, have given individual Africans food and clothing as charity. They said that they were trying to create safe, viable communities for what they called the blacks and coloreds as well as for themselves. Mr. Wolterstorff commented that it was then that he realized that there was a difference between benevolence and justice. Now, I found that his talk tended to be a little too philosophical and vague at times, not grounded in clear analysis of the problem of justice. For example, he had a hard time defining the notion of perfect justice and imperfect justice as in the case of the genocide in Darfur. He lost me then and I started to get impatient. In my view, there needs to be no need to define the situation in Darfur, but rather we can simply note that innocent people, men, women and children are being slaughtered and nothing is being done to stop that. The world lacks the political will to do something about that tragic situation. He also seemed to be trying to make the case that the talk of justice was not the invention of the Enlightenment, that Middle Ages theologians talked about rights, which was proof that talk of justice and natural rights was not a secular phenomenon. It became clear that he did not have much good to say about secular government or the Enlightenment that helped ushered in our own nation as a secular government based on democratic principles. It seemed he was trying to make a case, as a Calvinist, that a belief in God and in particular in Christianity is the best, if not the only way to create a theory of and commitment to the idea of justice. I went up to him after his talk and told him quite clearly that one need not believe in God to treat other people with respect and dignity. He did not disagree, but we then had an argument about the idea of secular government. He then said something quite remarkable, that no secular state had ever succeeded. Later at the luncheon I got a sense of why he was so disdainful of secularists. He talked at length about Adolph Hitler as an example of secular government gone amuck. It seemed that he believed that secular government had something to do with atheism. I found his ideas about those topics missed the point. Secular government is not about leaders being atheists, but rather it refers merely to the idea that government is neutral about religion and does not promote anyone sect. Thus, in a country that has a secular government, such as ours, people are free to practice or not their own religion. I contend that it is the best form of government that creates peace in a country such as ours with diversity of religions. I also told him that while that Middle Age theologians may talk about certain rights such as people having a right to food and shelter, but these same theologians would deny the rights of others to believe differently. But, it was clear that Mr. Wolterstorff did not countenance secular humanism. We finally ended our conversation on the idea of what is that will help to bring justice in the world. I told him that what helps people to treat others with respect and dignity is their ability and willingness to identify with others. He laughed at that notion, indicating that it was not enough to merely identify with someone in order to bring justice in the world. And that is where the conversation ended. I think it is safe to say that Mr. Wolterdorff was skeptical of my reasoning and I, of his. Today, I want to talk about skepticism and suggest that it can be a good thing especially concerning our own beliefs. But it is important for us to acknowledge, that while we are not skeptical, generally of our own religious beliefs, we are all skeptics – when it comes to other people’s beliefs. Therefore, today I suggest that being a skeptic is a good thing, but especially being skeptical of one’s own religion, of one’s own world view. I think that Mr. Wolterstroff may not understand the significance of the idea of the importance of humans identifying with other humans as the basis for creating justice in the world. I will share with you what I meant by identification. When I was in seminary, I worked in a daycare, as a worker and as a coordinator of the parents who were also seminarians I thought at first that it would not be that interesting of a job. I like kids and worked in R.E. at our church with 3rd and 4th graders. That I enjoyed, but I thought that working with the really young children, barely out of babyhood and toddler stage, would be, well, boring. You can’t really have a conversation with a 2-year old, not like a 9-year old. And besides, these children needed the diapers changed. But I learned something in the daycare, something profound, something about human nature and the process of maturity. For example, there was a boy named Seth who wanted to get on the slide first time and every time and when I would hold him back, he would wail like a banshee. Now, why did he did he do that, I would ask myself? After all, Seth is well-cared for, warm and safe, with loving parents, and he has me as his protector. Why would he be so angry? Then I thought, well, to Seth, the world is Seth. There is nothing outside of his world, but Seth. In a sense, it was his worldview, his theology, if you will, and thus when I would hold him back, trying to teach him to take turns, he would think that I was violating his moral code, his worldview. In other words, according to Seth, I was in the wrong, I was doing that which was unjust. But hopefully, children like Seth will mature and start to identify with others, first with their mothers, such that a 2-year old would feel concerned if she were hurt or unhappy. But then, like a stone in a pond, concentric circles of identification expand to include other family members, fathers, siblings, grandparents, etc., then members of peer groups, teachers, people in the community, and in time, if a person is realized with all humanity and indeed with the living world. Thus, maturation means that we start to take into account other people’s needs and desires for our own benefit, because in a sense, they are a part of us. Thus, it is the identification process that will bring justice in the world, not a belief in God, and certainly not a belief in Christianity, for we all know that religions, including Christianity have often been part of the problem. Certainly there are devote Christians as there are Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus etc. who work for human rights. But the issue is not their faith. The issue is simply do they identify with people who suffer in the world. A young man in the audience at the lecture talked about Christian love and used Martin Luther King, Jr.’s work as an example of one who held to his Christian faith such that he worked for justice while still treating his opponents with dignity. No doubt, King’s faith helped him to work for justice and still keep his dignity, but at the core of that faith is the idea that we are all God’s children deserving of love, very much our Universalist creed. And because we believe as King, we can identify with others, especially those who are suffering. Without that identification, again, it does not matter what one’s religion is, there is no hope of one being motivated to treat that person justly, perhaps with neglect, but never with justice. Earlier, I read a selection from Forrest Wood’s, The Arrogance of Faith: Christianity and Race in America from the Colonial Era to the Twentieth Century that demonstrated how the great Seneca chief, Red Jacket, had a skeptical and humane attitude concerning European Christianity. He argued with the missionary Cram by suggesting that the red man and the white man were put on this earth for different purposes. He suggested that if the Bible was meant for everyone, then it should have been written in their language as well. And why should he trust the white man since they have demonstrated themselves to be untrustworthy. The Wyandot Indians also noted that since the Bible was written by agriculturists, it was not meant for them since they were hunters. Cram, in his manner of being a true believer refuses to shake hands with Red Chief, calling him the devil because he did not believe correctly. The European Christians showed their dogmatism, their lack of skepticism about their own faith, thus, what the Europeans believed about Christianity was irrelevant compared to their arrogance that prevented them from identifying with Seneca and the Wyandot Indians. As Red Jacket called Cram ‘brother’ Cram refuses to shake Red Jacket’s hand. The lack of respect came from lack of identification with the Indians. The Europeans did not even try because they were sure of themselves. And because they did not identify with the Indians, they thought of them as other, as strange, as less then human, thus making it possible to mistreat the Indians without a tinge of guilt or shame. These Indians, after all are not our brothers, or fathers or sons, they would say to themselves. They are not even our friends. They are just some godless creatures, not much different from the animals in the forests. I close with a passage from Arrogance of Faith that I believe demonstrates an attitude of skepticism that the Native Americans had for the Christian faith that showed their humanity, based on their ability to identify with Jesus: Now, I too am skeptical about the crucifixion for similar reasons that Red Jacket expressed. To me, it is a story of torture of an innocent man and a gifted teacher. What kind of God would do that? What kind of man would do that? And to my mind, theologians do handsprings attempting make the crucifixion into some kind of holy event, based on the notion that Jesus is God. A strange idea to me, indeed. Now, we can note that European’s arrogant attitude is pervasive and it was not just because Christianity made them so heartless. Many Christians like Martin King prove that is not the case and others, like an atheist can be just as cold and cruel. But rather the problem of lack of justice derived from their inability to identify with the Native Americans. They did not see them as their brothers and certainly not their friends, but rather as something other and lesser. The Native Americans in this story, on the other hand, showed a sense of compassion to their misguided Christian friends, they showed that they were troubled, quite naturally by the idea that God the father would torture his son. Perhaps, the Native Americans understood better the meaning of the Crucifixion Story then the European Christians. Who knows? God knows. But what I do know is that if we are to have justice in this world, if we are to learn how to treat each other with justice, then we best attempt to identify with each other, as if we are all brothers and sisters, as if we are all friends. Let us hope and pray that become skeptical of all those beliefs that prevent us from this noble mission. Let us hope and pray that we all treat each other with respect and dignity because we know that you and I are one.

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