FREEDOM: THE HEART OF DEMOCRACY
Rev. Kit Ketcham
July 4, 2021
On our nation’s 245th birthday today, before the fireworks explode over the river tonight and the hot dogs and hamburgers hit the grill, let’s celebrate that we are in a new home, at a new time of day, with some new faces and some faces we haven’t seen in person for almost a year and a half.
We’ve been deprived of certain freedoms, we’ve chafed at those restrictions, we’ve gone along because our consciences insisted that we consider the larger good. It hasn’t been easy and we may have resented the uproar from certain quarters about FREEDOM from government interference and the stubborn refusals to comply with public health recommendations like wearing a mask, observing social distance, and other restrictions that seemed to some to compromise the American way of life---doing what you darned well please.
You would think that most of us by now would have realized that “doing what you darned well please” isn’t a healthy way to live, does not get you a significant other, or even a second date. We can’t be oblivious to the needs of others and our society and come out smelling like a rose, in the vernacular of an older place and time.
Freedom is a messy topic. Seems like for every freedom we prize, we have to consider the consequences of that freedom. Freedom to disregard the warnings about COVID landed a lot of people in the hospital and many died.
Freedom to disregard the civil rights of people of color has proved to be disastrous, as we are forced now to look at our dismal history of slavery, poverty, segregation, and other cultural punishments visited upon those whose skin color or station in life has relegated them to fewer opportunities for advancement.
Freedom to speak hatefully about those with sexual or gender diversity has resulted in the deaths of countless suicidal children and adults, psychic wounds from bullying and discriminatory practices denying the rights of transgender people to adequate health care, and a sense of fear about being one’s true self. And don’t forget the stigma of HIV/AIDS, when thousands were dying and there was no urgency on the part of our government to offer help.
It's been instructive and astonishing to witness the freedoms many citizens are pursuing even in the face of the consequences: freedom from truth lies at the bottom of a plethora of waystations on the way down : freedom from health care, freedom from personal responsibility, freedom from caring about the larger whole. Freedom from science they don’t like. Freedom from liberal values that require deeper thought than a kneejerk NOT in my town or church or family or friends. Freedom from inconvenient requirements like masks or temperature checks or even the suggestion of vaccination.
These are so-called “freedoms” that have severe consequences, not only to the true believer but also to our precious democracy, the democracy that depends on truthful information, reason-based requirements, honesty in our public servants and elected leaders.
I did some Google work to delve into what the term freedom means---what does it allow and what does it disallow?
I read about positive liberty and negative liberty. Philosophers like Erich Fromm and others distinguish between “freedom from” and “freedom to” and the difficult task of working that out in a democracy.
Currently, as we emerge slowly from months and months of restrictions in the service of public health, the difference between the two becomes stark and challenging.
In an essay by Ibram X. Kendi in the Atlantic recently, the long-standing difference between core notions of freedom from and freedom to, Kendi points out that these two notions of freedom have long rubbed along uneasily side by side, but that those who demand that states open up so they may shop or visit the zoo, among other so-called free pleasures, are, as he says, revealing the tension between the two.
It's the very notion that it doesn’t matter what happens to the larger community so long as the individual has unfettered freedom to do as they please. This value animates the gun rights movement---indicating for that group that the cost of true liberty is tens of thousands of avoidable gun deaths each year.
We have seen hundreds of gun-toting insurgents mounting the steps and climbing the walls of our national capitol, and Americans must decide whether the price we are willing to pay for the freedom of armed protests is our own health and safety.
Polls have shown that the majority of Americans are still deeply devoted to the proposition that brandishing of guns inside a Capitol building is not actually liberty, not liberty and justice for all but rather only for a small minority of those who seek to define freedom as something they will seize and threaten and even kill for.
The idea of personal freedom is a concept which has been debated for centuries. In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Aunt Lydia, an instructor for novice Handmaids, tells the women that there are two kinds of freedoms:
Freedom for the individual to do what he or she wants, which may seem desirable but can lead to anarchy, and…
Freedom from, in which rules and restrictions protect individuals from the results of amoral or anarchic behavior.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, evidence of both attitudes has emerged in the severe restriction of individual liberty and freedom of speech in such repressive regimes as the USSR and other authoritarian nations and the insistence by insurgents on their right to attack the US Capitol and State capitols in defense of a false belief that an election was stolen.
In early 1943, during the second world war and about the time of the Blitz in Europe, the artist Norman Rockwell painted scenes of what President Franklin D Roosevelt at the time considered “The Four Freedoms” of American life. (Frank)
The first work in this series was a family having what looks like a Thanksgiving meal together, with grandparents, adult children and their children smiling and laughing across a table laden with food and featuring a giant turkey in the center of the scene. This painting was entitled “Freedom from Want”.
The second painting in the series portrays a man who appears to be perhaps a blue-collar worker standing and speaking to a crowd of men seated around him. This is entitled “Freedom of Speech”
The third painting shows a man and woman at the bedside of two sleeping young boys. The man has a folded newspaper in his hands with headlines about bombings across Europe. This painting is entitled “Freedom from Fear”.
The fourth painting shows a grouping of people’s faces in a variety of prayer or reverie, or concentration on a speaker who is not pictured. This painting is entitled “Freedom to Worship”.
That was 78 years ago and Rockwell’s folksy, homey paintings appeared regularly in the Saturday Evening Post, hung in galleries across America and were prized for their depiction of an American citizenry which was blessed by these four freedoms.
Nowadays, they seem, to me at least, to depict an America that never really existed, except in our ability to overlook the ways each purported freedom was a false front---romantic and charming but idealistic and unreal.
We have been challenged to look at the real America, the America that is beautiful, yes, but also hiding a dark history of oppression and greed.
As Unitarian Universalists, we have communally decided that our religious faith is founded upon 7 principles which outline the values which form the bedrock of our faith.
Over the years, as the issues of racism and white supremacy have come to light and the pain of marginalization has affected Unitarian Universalist congregations and associations, our leadership, guided by the strength and determination of the many people of color who are active in our congregations and in our (governance), shaken by experiences of POC that have come to light over the years, there has come a movement to add an 8th Principle to our guiding principles.
The proposed 8th Principle, which is making its way through the acceptance process and will likely be added to our list of Principles, is worded in this way:
“We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.”
Over the generations that the Unitarian Universalist Association has existed, we have prided ourselves on being “ahead of the pack” in terms of responding to social issues. We were in the forefront of earlier social movements like marriage equality and women in the ministry, but when hiring practices in the UUA revealed great discrepancies in the hiring of equally qualified POC, our leadership realized we had a big problem to solve.
I spent some time reading more about the 8th Principle proposition and would like to tell you more about it. It is clearly related to the efforts this congregation’s membership has made in understanding the issues of white supremacy and the history of racism in our country.
Let me tell you what I’ve learned. I retired about the time this was gaining prominence in UUA circles, so it’s been a new journey for me too. But as I looked at the Norman Rockwell paintings of the Four Freedoms, I realized that there is not a single face (that I could discern anyhow) of any person of color.
There was no indication that Black or Brown or Asian people had the same freedoms as white Americans. So here is some of the information that is the groundwork for affirming and promoting an 8th Principle.
WHY THE UUA (USA)?
Whiteness, and chattel slavery (structural racism) were invented in the US, at the same time that modern Unitarianism and Universalism were being created.
Unitarians originally were largely from the New England European-American elite – often did not treat Native American peoples well, benefitted from slavery, and some were leaders in the Eugenics movement (promoting birth control for people of color because they were seen as inferior.
Some Unitarian and Universalist ministers (more Universalists, since Universalism was more of a working class movement) spoke out against slavery, but we did little as a denomination. After the Trayvon Martin verdict, many UU ministers said nothing in church
UU’s did a very good job during the Civil Rights Movement, largely at the request of Dr. King, and we deserve to be proud of that.
In the late 60’s a promising movement among Black UUs was supported by the UUA, then de-funded because of a financial crisis, leading to a terrible conflict, after which many African-Americans left the UUA.
There was a long period of silence until the late 80’s and early 90’s, then excellent progress after that for a decade or so, but we have regressed, leading to an incident in which the UUA President resigned over hiring inclusivity issues.
WHY SINGLE OUT RACISM?
At a global level, this would not necessarily make sense…but in the USA, racism stands out. The two worst crises of the UUA (late 1960’s and now) were both related to race. Racism in the US stems from chattel slavery, where people were uniquely legally treated as property that could be inherited, for something (skin color) they had no control over.
The UUA has done well with women becoming ministers and leaders (the 7 Principles themselves came out of the Women’s Movement within UUism).
The LGBTQIA+ community is well represented as members, ministers, RE staff, and other leadership in individual congregations and the UUA, and the Welcoming Congregation program has been very effective.
Some congregations have done a good job of making sure they are accessible to people with disabilities, although many UU spaces are still not fully accessible.
- • WHAT IS BELOVED COMMUNITY?
Beloved Community happens when people of diverse racial, ethnic, educational, class, gender, abilities, sexual orientation backgrounds/identities come together in an interdependent relationship of love, mutual respect, and care that seeks to realize justice within the community and in the broader world.
\WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE ACCOUNTABLE?
White UUs hold themselves accountable to communities of color, to make sure whites do what they say they will do. In practice, that can mean having a People of Color Caucus within congregations, districts, etc., to discern and express needs and concerns to the rest of the community. Black UUs hold each other accountable and help each other see and dismantle signs of internalized racism. We need an effective mechanism or structure to ensure this. Similarly for other oppressions.
The UU Principles were designed to be dynamic, not a fixed creed. It means we want to always continue to be educating ourselves, exploring truth, and raising our consciousness. When we get to a new level of understanding and clarity, our structure makes it possible to reflect that.
UU is the only religion that intentionally builds in that flexibility to acknowledge the importance of ongoing revealed truth. This happened when environmental awareness reached a critical mass and got added as a 7th Principle (although it also has multicultural relationship implications). We are approaching a similar critical mass level of awareness with the systemic nature of racism and other oppressions.
The 8th Principle is really just the beginning of action, rather than the ultimate goal. Many people of color have been attracted by the values and potential of UUism, but their souls have been repeatedly wounded by its whiteness. Let’s make our actions match our values. Let’s be a UU movement that truly feeds them. That would be spiritual wholeness.
Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.
Benediction: Our worship service is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering that Freedom is a quality that depends on truth, on our rational examination of issues and making rational decisions about them, and on our commitment to our diverse community. May we not be individuals who insist on OUR freedoms when others’ needs are at stake and may we continue to strive to bring Beloved Community to our nation and ourselves. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.
