{"id":231,"date":"2008-10-27T20:33:20","date_gmt":"2008-10-27T20:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/the-election-sermon.html"},"modified":"2008-10-27T20:33:20","modified_gmt":"2008-10-27T20:33:20","slug":"the-election-sermon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/the-election-sermon.html","title":{"rendered":"The Election Sermon"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

There’s a noble tradition in the ministry, going back to the 17th Century. <\/p>\n

One or two Sundays before an election, almost every preacher in the land <\/p>\n

devoted his sermon to the body politic. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It’s a great literary genre.  <\/span>Often, the brimstone was so hot <\/p>\n

that an Election Day sermon was the one sermon a minister might be remembered by. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There was a reason for that.  <\/span>No words were minced. <\/p>\n

He entered the pulpit and for the next two hours–count your blessings, folks–proclaimed a jeremiad.  <\/span>As in Jeremiah, the great Hebrew prophet. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here’s how it went.  <\/span>The world has gone, or is about to go to Hell. <\/i><\/p>\n

The reason is simple. God is punishing you for your sins. <\/i><\/p>\n

Whatever is wrong in this world is wrong because you are wrong-headed, <\/i><\/p>\n

wrong-hearted, inattentive to God’s commandments,<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span>and God is watching and God is angry,<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span>and if you keep on messing up you will burn forever<\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At least they burned for two long hours. Nonetheless, by the end <\/p>\n

of the pastor’s jeremiad, almost everyone who listened did in fact feel <\/p>\n

at least partially responsible for everything that was going wrong in the world.  <\/span>No more “throw the bums out”; the bums were us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In passing judgment, the early Puritan preachers, in their demands for <\/p>\n

moral perfection, too often forgot the importance of forgiveness: <\/p>\n

of loving-kindness; of self-acceptance; of honest doubts.  <\/span><\/p>\n

But they did remind us that, despite our failings, we are accountable.  <\/span><\/p>\n

They didn’t let us pass the buck while complaining <\/p>\n

that somebody else was diminishing its value. <\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

I won’t give you two hours worth of sermon, <\/p>\n

and I’m not going to tell you who to vote for. <\/p>\n

I’m not even going to tell you that everything wrong <\/p>\n

with this country is your fault and the result of God’s responsive wrath.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I will say, with the nation mired in two seemingly endless wars <\/p>\n

and the economy in meltdown, that this is the most important<\/p>\n

presidential election since 1932.  <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Add the almost unimaginable, world-inspiring presence <\/p>\n

of an African-American on the verge of being elected <\/p>\n

president of the United States, and the election takes on a historic quality<\/p>\n

unparalleled in modern memory.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With the world on a precipice and our economy in ruins, <\/p>\n

we will be casting the most critical vote of our lifetimes. <\/p>\n

In casting this vote, one question should rest foremost in our minds.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Which of the two candidates is most likely <\/p>\n

to spend his first 100 days imitating Franklin Delano Roosevelt? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I am partisan in this race.  <\/span>I favor one candidate above the other <\/p>\n

for a host of reasons.  <\/span>But I remain unsure, <\/p>\n

once the dirt is swept from the campaign floor <\/p>\n

and half the wistful promises are being forgotten, <\/p>\n

which of these two candidates is temperamentally more suited <\/p>\n

to move from the nasty business of being elected president<\/p>\n

to fulfill the solemn oath he will take <\/p>\n

to serve all the American people at our great hour of need.<\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

There wasn’t a hint of FDR’s first 100 days in his generic, <\/p>\n

quite negative campaign for president, during which he stressed<\/p>\n

the importance of balancing the federal budget.  <\/span><\/p>\n

But then, almost overnight, with the prompt action of a willing congress, <\/p>\n

he corrected the nation’s course and charted a new future for America.  <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Only George Washington and Abraham Lincoln faced as great a challenge.  <\/span><\/p>\n

The former met it by making the founders’ dreams come true, <\/p>\n

the later, over four long years, by ending slavery.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our next president will face a challenge less great perhaps than these, <\/p>\n

but greater than any we have faced in recent decades.  <\/span><\/p>\n

He must rise to the occasion and we must rise with him.  <\/span><\/p>\n

If he fails to rise, it is our responsibility to present <\/p>\n

not a partisan but a patriotic demand that he and the congress <\/p>\n

put aside their base-pleasing talking points and act <\/p>\n

on behalf of all the American people, <\/p>\n

first, by making the hard decisions that will right our economy.<\/p>\n

and second, by conducting our foreign policy <\/p>\n

in a way that will make our nation and our allies <\/p>\n

once again proud of America at its best.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That said, in the spirit, if not the letter, of our Puritan forebears<\/p>\n

let me expand my compass to include a religious charge.<\/p>\n

Both the candidates for office are flawed men.  <\/span>I accept that.  <\/span><\/p>\n

I want a flawed person in the White House, <\/p>\n

but one who knows that he or she is flawed. <\/p>\n

The reason is simple. The president will be less dangerous. <\/p>\n

Certitude, moral and otherwise, is blind.  <\/span>For eight, long years<\/p>\n

we have witnessed the ravages of moral certitude <\/p>\n

and blind, inflexible leadership.  <\/span><\/p>\n

We can’t afford, and the world can’t afford, more of the same.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Though FDR, with the advice of a wide range of brilliant counselors,<\/p>\n

came close, the president of the United States alone <\/p>\n

is not going to save us.  <\/span>The president can help and inspire us, <\/p>\n

can work with and for us.  <\/span>He may even, like FDR, <\/p>\n

rise to the occasion, act with purpose, achieve near consensus, <\/p>\n

and pull the nation back from the brink of catastrophe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But, in the largest sense of the word, neither John McCain <\/p>\n

nor Barack Obama is going to save us.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Here the old Puritan preachers were right. <\/p>\n

The votes we cast for president are much less important <\/p>\n

than the votes we cast with and in our lives.  <\/span>Then God, <\/p>\n

greater than all and yet present in each, will save us.  <\/span><\/p>\n

God will save us by looking through our eyes, and touching our hearts,<\/p>\n

and applying our hands to the saving work of neighborly love. <\/p>\n

Conversely, wherever you see neighborly hate, God is absent.<\/p>\n

God’s love unites us, it doesn’t divide us, <\/p>\n

either within or among ourselves.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If the United States of America is about anything <\/p>\n

it is about unity amidst diversity.  <\/span>E pluribus unum. <\/p>\n

Not one for many, but out of many, one. <\/p>\n

It is far less important that the trains run on time, <\/p>\n

even that all the passengers have a government-stamped ticket,<\/p>\n

than that the passengers are willing to take responsibility <\/p>\n

for one another’s welfare. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On this historic election eve, the choice we must make, <\/p>\n

not just with our vote, but with our lives, <\/p>\n

is a choice between hope and fear. <\/p>\n

Hate is not love’s opposite, fear is.  <\/span>When we are frightened<\/p>\n

–by others, by life itself–we cannot love.  <\/span><\/p>\n

We can hide.  <\/span>We can fight.  <\/span>But we cannot love.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Conversely, love casts out fear. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We are good at fear.  <\/span>That’s why politicians play on our fears. <\/p>\n

Fear gives power to others, and inspires us <\/p>\n

to try to take power away from them.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Fear divides, weakens and then conquers us.  <\/span><\/p>\n

It feeds on our weakness and envy and jealousy. <\/p>\n

It leads us to follow those who tell us we are victims. <\/p>\n

 <\/span>It closes hearts and poisons minds.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One of the ways fear drives the world today may, on its face, <\/p>\n

seem positive.  <\/span>Fear loves order and hates disorder.  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Fear will sacrifice equity and freedom for order in a minute.<\/p>\n

I’m not suggesting that disorder is good and order bad.  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Both are neutral in value.  <\/span>All depends on the ingredients that create them.  <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But, in the spirit of the founders, controlled disorder <\/p>\n

is far more American than imposed order. <\/p>\n

Imposed order almost always rises phoenix-like <\/p>\n

from the ashes of scapegoats.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Jews, gays, feminists, Blacks, immigrants: take your pick. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let me close this brief and gentle jeremiad <\/p>\n

by recalling the basic ingredients of the religious life.  <\/span><\/p>\n

St. Paul named the three great virtues:  <\/span>faith, hope, and love. <\/p>\n

If fear is love’s opposite, the opposite of faith is belief, <\/span><\/p>\n

and the opposite of hope is certitude.<\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Faith is confidence, a basic trust in being. <\/p>\n

Belief is a set of propositions that true-believers claim <\/p>\n

make it possible for us to possess faith.  <\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, belief diminishes faith’s compass.  <\/span>It may even kill faith.   <\/span><\/p>\n

We believe something, or in someone, and it disappoints us <\/p>\n

or they disappoint us and we lose our faith. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Belief has a second shadow side.  <\/span>How easily it becomes demonic, <\/p>\n

or even silly.  <\/span>Take the pastor who said that, <\/p>\n

since Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims around the world <\/p>\n

were praying for an Obama victory, if McCain didn’t win, <\/p>\n

our God would look smaller than theirs.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Belief casts a political shadow as well. <\/p>\n

Surely each of us has believed at some point in someone, <\/p>\n

but then times changed or we changed.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Camelot came and went and we lost our faith. <\/p>\n

We became cynical.  <\/span>Or we lurched from one belief system to another.<\/p>\n

Think of how many ex-communists joined the Catholic Church. <\/p>\n

The God who failed, fails again and again and again. <\/span><\/p>\n

Faith, which says yes to mystery, wonder, possibility, and change <\/p>\n

should never be sacrificed to belief. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let me put it this way.  <\/span>I have faith in myself, <\/p>\n

but I certainly don’t believe in myself. <\/p>\n

You see the difference.  <\/span>Only faith gets us through a dark night of the soul. <\/p>\n

It’s the difference between a view and a fortress, <\/p>\n

the difference between horizons and walls. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As for hope, the opposite of hope is certitude.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Hope says things, perhaps, can be different, be better, <\/p>\n

the world and ourselves redeemed, <\/p>\n

if only we will align ourselves with life by doing what we can <\/p>\n

and being who we yet might be.  <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hopelessness is one form of certitude.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Assurance is another.  <\/span>Both squeeze out the gentle ambiguities of hope. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don’t want my president to ask me to believe in him.<\/p>\n

I simply won’t.  <\/span>I will ask him to earn my faith.<\/p>\n

And I don’t want him to play on my fears of others. <\/p>\n

Believe me, I have such fears, I surely do.<\/p>\n

And I don’t want him to crush my hope by setting up an impossible dream, <\/p>\n

any more than I want to succumb to the cynics <\/p>\n

who have lost their ability to dream. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Instead I want my president to inspire hope, just as FDR did. <\/p>\n

I want him to give me faith. <\/p>\n

And I certainly want him to encourage me to open my heart to love. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mine is a religious request.  <\/span>I know that.  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But, after all, this is a religious nation, an experiment in religious freedom, <\/p>\n

founded in the spirit, not the letter of the scriptures. <\/p>\n

As we near Election Day, I am no more ashamed <\/p>\n

of making a religious request than my forebears were <\/p>\n

when they fulminated for hours, expressing as sincere a desire <\/p>\n

that everything, somehow, might turn out right.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I ask a lot, because our founders and early leaders asked no less of us. <\/p>\n

Abraham Lincoln, who recalled us to “the better angels of our nature”<\/p>\n

put it this way: “The question is not whether God is on our side, <\/p>\n

but whether we are on the side of God.” <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The United States of America is the most daring experiment <\/p>\n

in democratic governance that has ever been fashioned. <\/p>\n

Our responsibilities are equal to its promise. <\/span><\/p>\n

I have great faith in our system of government. <\/span><\/p>\n

I love this country and its people.  <\/span><\/p>\n

I hope that our future will fulfill the founders’ dreams. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes, I have my doubts.  <\/span>And I have my fears. <\/p>\n

All of us do.  <\/span>Yet my faith and hope are strong. <\/p>\n

We who already have so much will somehow muster the capacity <\/p>\n

to rise to historic occasions such as this one.<\/p>\n

If we and our leaders can somehow rise beyond politics as usual<\/p>\n

to meet this momentous challenge, <\/p>\n

November fourth will mark not the end of this election. <\/p>\n

It will mark its beginning.  <\/span>And the world will change.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Amen.  <\/span>I love you.  <\/span>And may God bless us all.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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One or two Sundays before an election, almost every preacher in the land devoted his sermon to the body politic.   It’s a great literary genre.  Often, the brimstone was so hot that an Election Day sermon was the one sermon a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":143,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election-08"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Election Sermon - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/the-election-sermon.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Election Sermon - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There’s a noble tradition in the ministry, going back to the 17th Century. 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He was educated at Stanford University (A.B., 1970), Harvard Divinity School (M.Div., 1974), and Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D. in Early Church History (1978). Dr. Church, who is 59 years old, has written or edited 24 books, including: Father and Son: A Personal Biography of Senator Frank Church of Idaho (Harper & Row, 1985); Our Chosen Faith: An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism (Beacon, 1989); God and Other Famous Liberals (Simon and Schuster, 1991); Life Lines (Beacon 1996); Lifecraft (Beacon, 2000); Bringing God Home (St. Martins, 2002); The American Creed (St. Martins, 2002) and Freedom From Fear (St. Martins 2004). Recently he has been focusing on the history of church and state in America as editor of The Separation of Church and State (Beacon, 2004) and author of So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle over Church and State (Harcourt, 2007). Beacon Press recently released Love and Death-My Journey Through the Valley of the Shadow in June of 2008. Among other works, he is editor of The Essential Tillich (University of Chicago, 1999); The Macmillan Books of Earliest Christian Prayers and Meditations (1988-1989); One Prayer At a Time (Collier, 1989); Thomas Jefferson's Bible (Beacon, 1989) and Restoring Faith: America's Religious Leaders Answer, Terror with Hope (Walker, 2001). For two years (1987-88), Dr. Church wrote a weekly column for the Chicago Tribune; fifty of these columns are collected in Everyday Miracles: Stories From Life (Harper and Row, 1988). He served two terms at Dartmouth College as Montgomery Fellow and visiting professor (spring\/summer 1989). Eight of his addresses have been selected for inclusion in the annual anthology Representative American Speeches (Wilson & Co.): \"Love and Death\" (1983-1984); \"Terrorism\" (1986-1987); \"Chariots of Fire\" (1987-1988); \"If I Were A Woman\" (1989-1990); \"Shall We Overcome?\" (1992-1993); \"The American Creed\" (1994-1995); \"Fear and Terror\" (1994-1995); and \"September Song\" (1996-1997). \"Fear and Terror\" is also included in Representative American Speeches1937-1997 (Wilson & Co., 1997). Dr. Church's 1988 interview with Bill Moyers is included in A World of Ideas (Doubleday, 1989). Dr. Church is also a member of the Executive Board at the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. He recently retired as Chair of the Council on the Environment of New York City after ten years of service (appointed by Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg) overseeing, among other programs, New York's 50 Greenmarkets. He is married to Carolyn Buck Luce and has four children, Frank (29), Nina (26), Jacob (23), and Nathan (21).","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/fchurch"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}