Another Letter to Sam Harris
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
2/17 & 2/18/07

 

“Belief clings; faith lets go.”
–Alan Watts (1915-1973), writer and philosopher of comparative religion

 

Meditation “Litany” by Stuart Kestenbaum (adapted)

 

 

 

Bless us with the first breath of morning.  Bless the packet of seeds for the garden, shaking like a shaman’s rattle in prayer.  Bless us with spare change in our pockets to give to the homeless, bless us with a heart that has been serviced by the mechanic, bless us with good tires on the icy road.  Bless us so that we’re not just covering our own [butts], but weeping for the rest of the world.  Bless our tears so that they irrigate the land for the starving, that there be no more drought.  Bless us with one idea after another that we might sort out the good from the bad, bless us with free lunches and subscriptions, bless us with a winter storm so big that it closes everything down for a week and we find ourselves at the beginning of time.  Bless us with water, bless us with light, bless us with darkness, and bless us with language.  Bless our tongues that we can speak.  Bless our cars so they start.  Bless our computers so that they may connect to the Internet and bring us the news of the universe.  Bless Robert Bly and Gloria Steinem [and Sam Harris], bless all the worn-out athletes whose bodies are falling apart, bless the tides twice a day and the moon every month.  Bless the sun, bless us as we are blessing you, for this is a two-way street, after all,  and we’re in this thing together. Bless mass transit and the first cup of coffee.  Sing O ye frost heaves and icy patches, praise the spruce trees all crowded together, the crows in the trees flying heavenward and earthward, flying everywhere in between.  Bless the night with its constellations that we have dreamed up. Bless our stories that they may somehow be true, for this is all we have.  Bless all creatures great and small and the basket makers who weave together a framework to hold emptiness.  Bless the empty spaces that are within our bodies, the vast distances inside each cell.  Bless each cell, which is its own universe, ready to divide, split in two, and make more than enough.[1]

 

Reading

Our reading today is from the book Faith by the American Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg.

 

…The essential questioning we must bring to any belief system…[is] Can it transform our minds?  Can it help reshape our pain into wisdom and love?

…It’s not the existence of beliefs that is the problem, but what happens to us when we hold them rigidly, without examining them, when we presume the absolute centrality of our views and become disdainful of others.  Placing ourselves in a position of privilege—beliefs are treasured commodities and we are the proud owners—implies that we alone possess the earth, we possess the Truth.  In a spirit of magnanimity we might look kindly at those who don’t share our views, but they remain the “other,” and we don’t really need to listen to them.  Our story becomes the story.  The smugness that ensues is so quietly assumed, it is no longer like an article of clothing we put on: It is skeletal. 

…Buddhists say that holding such views is like gazing at the sky through a straw. …When we’re attached to our beliefs, we can spend a lot of time comparing straws.  Especially in the face of fear, we tend to hold on to our straws with a death grip. … We become rigid, and chastise others for believing the wrong things without really listening to what they are saying.  We become defensive and resist opening our minds to new ideas or perspectives.  This doesn’t mean that all beliefs are accurate reflections of the truth, but it does mean that we have to look at what’s motivating our defensiveness.[2]

 

Sermon

 

Dear Sam Harris,

I didn’t think I was going to write you again…at least not so soon.  In fact, I had intended to work with the ideas of faith and doubt in a different context this week.  But, alas, I can’t resist writing you again.

 

Last week, you may recall, I sent you a letter in which I acknowledged that, though I agree with much of what you have written in your books A Letter to a Christian Nation and The End of Faith about the dangers of dogmatic, exclusionary religion, (I am a Unitarian Universalist after all) I am concerned about what I think is your too-quick dismissal of perspectives other than your own, especially the perspectives of those who are moderate or liberal in their approach to theistic religion.  In fact, despite the confident (some would say arrogant) way in which you make your case, I think your approach to this topic is not the solution to the problems humanity faces…problems that are, as you point out, directly tied in many cases to the ways in which religious beliefs are held and followed.   I get the sense from some letters and comments I received this week from members of the church I serve, that I was not clear in my correspondence to you, so I figured I might give it another try.

 

As I pointed out in my letter last week, you have many defenders in my congregation.  I joked that some have “bronzed copies” of your book The End of Faith on their mantles.  After I read my letter to you in church, I heard from one member who said that now he was going have “two bronzed copies.”  I didn’t ask my friend, Harvey, if he had asked his wife Ellen how she felt about that, but I suppose that is up to them to negotiate. 

 

One of your supporters summed up what he heard in my letter by suggesting that I was dogmatic about your dogma against others’ dogma.  Quick to try to clarify my position in the few seconds we had in the receiving line after the service, I said that I felt you were telling us what we “should” believe about religion whereas I was suggesting that there are other ways of looking at the topic.  Your supporter responded, “Yeah, but Harris is right.”

 

If I had more time to respond, I hope I would have said, “Yes, but the problem is that millions of others think they are right, too.  So where does that leave us?”

 

Well, Sam, I think you clearly state where that leaves us.  You write:

 

“What will we do if an Islamist regime…ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry?  If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is…

 

[or, I add, if they even exist!]

 

“…and so [you continue] we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them.  In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own.  Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime—as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day—but it may be the only course of action available to us, given what Islamists believe.”[3]

 

Change a few words in that excerpt, Sam, and you get the same basic rationale that was used to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq.  I don’t think you would disagree with that mission on principle (even if some of your supporters at my church would), nor would you disagree that we are talking about the same basic premise here:  Sometimes people have to die (whether directly or collaterally…) because of our fear that if we don’t kill them first, they will kill us.   This is how it must be on the battlefield, I know.  Self-preservation reigns supreme.  And I think your argument is that we are already on the battlefield…the war is already being fought and those of us who are not religious fanatics (at least in the traditional sense) better get our ammunition ready…not only in self-defense, but in attack mode. 

 

I just have to wonder,

if you are right, and we, by necessity, must lead with our fear,

if we must lead with our own brand of violence (whether intellectual or physical),

if we must be prepared to dismiss (at best) or kill (at worse) those who do not agree with us,

where will the violence stop?  How can it stop? 

 

One of your defenders wrote me this week echoing your concern about the ways in which religious moderates and liberals are too accommodating of those with exclusionary beliefs, especially when we say that everyone has a right to believe whatever she wants about God.  Here my friend was making the argument that you make so well: Why are religious views so often not up for discussion?  What is the point of interfaith “dialog” if we can’t really get down into the nitty-gritty of our differences…the differences that, at their core, often represent dangerously different world-views and expectations about what life means and is worth.  My friend wrote:

 

“As long as those beliefs cause actions that infringe on the rights of others, those beliefs are wrong, in my view.  My concern with ‘Interfaith Dialog’ is that moderates are unable or unwilling to challenge the impact of those beliefs that are calls to action to suppress others’ rights; and it becomes an interfaith monologue.”

 

My friend wrote that his belief system causes him to “feel a need to change the belief system of others.”  He cited as examples his need to change the beliefs of those who believe homosexuality is a sin and therefore feel they are justified in restricting the rights of gays and lesbians, and those who believe that an embryo is a person and therefore work to prohibit stem cell research.

 

I understand this desire to “change beliefs”.  I really do.  It would certainly make things a lot easier.  (I’m sure that religious fundamentalists feel the same way, too).  The question I need to ask my friend and any of us who are working to “change the belief system” of others is “How is that working out for you?  How many fundamentalists have you converted to your truth?”  I submit that telling people that they are wrong (particularly in the way you approach this truth-telling, Sam) is not a very good strategy.

 

Let me explain.

 

I am a board member of The Interfaith Alliance of Iowa, a non-partisan organization that seeks to be a positive, healing voice of religion in our public life.  Our issues are focused on being a reconciling religious voice on matters of civil rights and human dignity.  During the two years I served this organization as board chair, I had many opportunities to reflect on the positions and intentions of those on the religious right, especially when their beliefs have led them to try to restrict the civil rights of others.  When the executive director, Connie Ryan Terrell, and I would negotiate the language of our positions in speeches or letters to the editor, I believed it was imperative that we not call the beliefs of the religious right “hateful.”  Now, why would I have a problem describing the views of those who want to see homosexuals treated as second-class citizens, for example, as “hateful?”  For the simple fact, that those holding these restrictive views do not (and probably can not) see their beliefs as “hateful” at all.  Rather, they think that they are being compassionate.  For us to label their views as “hateful” just ratchets up the divisiveness and gets us off what I think is the real point:  We want a commitment to civil rights and civility to trump exclusionary religious belief, and since we live in a democracy not a theocracy, that is the way our constitution says it must be.  Do I wish I could tell off those who think their God condones discrimination against homosexuals?  You bet.  But I doubt that my telling them off would do anything but keep us entrenched in our own bunkers, on different sides, ready to fire off the next round.

 

I remember a meeting that Connie and I had with the executive director of the YMCA in Des Moines.  The Interfaith Alliance had learned that the Y was planning to use materials published by James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, an organization that is not only anti-gay but which also holds divisive views on corporal punishment of children and the role of women in the family and society.  We thought the YMCA needed to hear a voice of religion that said the Dobson material would be viewed as offensive by many and therefore would not be in keeping with the mission of a community organization that accepts public money and claims to serve people of all faiths.  We spoke with the executive director and a board member for nearly an hour.  We did not ask for the people who thought that the Dobson materials were appropriate to change their beliefs (as if that were even possible). We simply pointed out how the material would be viewed by at least some of the members.  In other words, we focused not on the beliefs represented by the Dobson material, but on the relationship of the Y to its members and to the community it serves.

 

Near the end of the conversation, during which the executive director confessed that, before our visit, he had not heard anything about the Dobson materials that would suggest they were controversial in any way (which basically out-ed him as either highly uninformed or a conservative Christian with little interface with those outside his religious perspective), it was painfully obvious to me that if Connie and I had approached our meeting with the goal of changing beliefs, we probably would not have been successful in keeping the Dobson materials out of the Y. The most painful moment came when the executive director said to me, “You don’t expect us to be pro-gay, do you?”  Now, it took a lot for me to not get in his face at that moment, berating him for thinking that treating homosexuals as humans with inherent dignity and worth would be seen as being pro-gay rather than pro-humanity.   But I didn’t get in his face because I knew that it was an argument that was grounded in something much bigger than the two of us.  I had to keep with the strategy I have learned working in community organizing approaches like those used in AMOS.  We have to find common ground in our common interests, and not get stuck in hopeless attempts to discern whose theological beliefs (or even political beliefs) are “right” even when we are certain we know the answer.

 

And here I come again to the point I was trying to make in my letter to you last week, Sam.  My point is not that I don’t agree with much of what you have written. My point is that I don’t think we are going to change religious belief systems by simply saying that the belief systems are wrong.  If it were that easy, I’m thinking there would be a lot less religious violence in the world and you would have had no motivation to write your books.  I think we can agree that, despite how obvious your perceptions seem to you (and in many cases, to me!), there are countless factors that determine why people believe what they do, especially about religion, and the ability to reason is not necessarily high on the list.  These factors, I’m sure you know, include culture, heritage, class, race, economics, locale, mental and imaginative capacity, exposure to abuse or violence, experiences of personal tragedy or trauma, among others.  You contend that this familiar absence of “reason” (at least as you define it) is one of the prime examples why theistic religion needs to be challenged if not eradicated.  And I don’t, in essence, disagree.  However, how reasonable is it to expect the eradication of religion as a viable option or to even begin to pursue it as a strategy?  What makes your arguments any more compelling and persuasive than the arguments of countless others who have come before you with the same message?

 

Maybe you are just being provocative.  If so, you have definitely achieved what you set out to do.  However, I get the impression that, with the style you have chosen, you are igniting your own sectarian flame that will not be able to extinguish, or even contain, the religious fires that are already burning, which, you rightly claim, is what needs to happen.  Rather, you seem to be encouraging those fires to spread even further.

 

One of your defenders said that he fears that religious liberals intent on respecting others’ beliefs (even as we disagree with what they do) run the risk of being the “Neville Chamberlains” of inter-religious dialog, and he may be right.  After all, after some quick research this week, I learned that Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister guilty of Nazi appeasement in the 1930’s, was in fact a Unitarian! However, I, for one, don’t think the other option, to assume a war had to happen at that time, was the best way to approach the situation either.  Pardon the gross over-simplification of the argument, but I’d rather be more like Neville Chamberlain than Adolf Hitler.

 

My primary issue with your work, Sam, is not that your concern about the impact of religious belief is unjustified.  You are a talented writer and thinker…no doubt about it.  My primary issue isn’t even, as one of your defenders suggested this week, that you are “inflammatory” and write with an “in-your-face” style.  For a discussion this important, I think it is far better to be honest rather than guarded.  In fact, I have not given you adequate recognition for how much your books have opened what could be an ultimately helpful dialog (at least at the church I serve).   The fact is, your approach forces all your thoughtful readers to consider what they believe about these issues and what commitments they are willing to make to work toward a better world.  My primary issue, Sam, is that you don’t, in my opinion, leave those of us who are most tied to our ways of perceiving reality (whether we be secular or theistic in orientation) anywhere to go other than to battle.  Your books are like proclamations from the mountaintop that the truth is finally at hand and that every theistic religious expression of the past is now, and always has been, “BS”… Before Sam. 

 

After I got some letters from church members who thought I was unfair to you, Sam, I searched for the reactions that others have had to your work.  I appreciate how one review by Daniel Lazare in The Nation described your approach as similar to one taken by an undergraduate “smart aleck in the back of the room who isn't afraid to raise questions that everyone else is too polite to ask,” but who “suffers from some serious intellectual shortcomings.”[4]

 

I don’t know if I need to pile on to the “intellectual shortcomings” part.  I just know that smart alecks don’t tend to be very persuasive and they are often far easier to tune out than they perhaps should be, especially when, like you, they have important things to say.  I know something about smart alecks.  I’ve been one.  Some would say, I was one last week.

 

So let me apologize if I have overstated or oversimplified my differences with you, and, in the process, alienated at least some of the members of the church I serve.  The fact is, even though I think there are dangerous things about your books, I encourage everyone to read and discuss your thoughts and come to their own conclusions. I think that what has enabled me to write two letters (and two sermons) about your ideas is how truly important I think they are and how I wish you hadn’t diminished what I think are the best parts of your argument by being so adamantly disrespectful of theistic religion as a whole, when you simply didn’t need to be.

 

I’ll try to leave you alone for a while now Sam.  Thanks for stimulating such an interesting and important discussion. I hope my congregation doesn’t stop thinking about what you have to say.  The respectful exchange of ideas, after all, is what my idea of the divine is all about.